TIGER GYMNASTS PERFORM FIELD TRIP FOR 3,000 LOCAL STUDENTS
TOWSON, Md. - More
than 3,000 students from local elementary and middle schools jammed into the
Towson Center on Wednesday morning as Coach Dick Filbert
and the Tiger gymnastics team presented their Field Trip Demonstration.
Keith Mills, '78, a
renowned sportscaster for WBAL-TV and WBAL-Radio, served as the emcee for the
event. He introduced each of the Tiger gymnasts, stressing the fact the Tiger
gymnasts are true scholar-athletes and work as hard in the classroom as they do
in the gym.
The
biggest cheers were reserved for senior Alise McDonald
and junior Megan Wooden, a pair of
Baltimore County products. McDonald is a graduate of Randallstown High School
while Wooden attended Perry Hall High School.
After
introducing the Tiger gymnasts, Mills presented Coach Filbert, who conducted
the Field Trip for the 18th time since 1991.
Coach
Filbert started the demonstration with a vocabulary lesson. He taught the
students two words that are vital in gymnastics - inversion and rotation. Then,
the Tiger gymnasts spent some time demonstrating what the words meant. To show
what inversion means, the gymnasts all stood on their hands at once. Then, they
walked around the arena on their hands while several of them went into the
crowd to walk upside down.
Then,
the Tigers showed how they rotate their bodies as they tumbled across the
floor. They showed off their vaulting skills with some help from the audience. Emily Hill, Lindsay Poplaski and Britney Russell showed off their skills by vaulting over
four students and landing safely on a mat.
While
most of the audience was impressed, there was one teacher who was skeptical.
So, Coach Filbert invited Mrs. Anna Spring of
Manor Woods Elementary School to come down to the floor. She came out of the
crowd and the Tiger coach asked Poplaski to vault over the teacher, who was
standing up. As a precautionary measure, Coach Filbert provided Mrs.
Spring with a Towson football helmet to wear. Undaunted, Poplaski vaulted
over the teacher with inches to spare.
The
Tigers also showed off their skills on the uneven bars and the balance beam
during the 75-minute presentation along with a team performance on the
floor exercise.