My name is Laura Marrelli, I am a member of the Gryphon women’s soccer team at the University of Guelph and I am writing on behalf of the entire team.
On Nov. 26 we celebrated our end-of-season team dinner. Together we shared a delicious meal and many thoughtful speeches. We had to give a special thank you to our staff, and single out our head coach, Shayne Campbell, for all of his hard work this year.
This past season, Shayne took home his second coach of the year award. Shayne is not only a well-respected coach within our university community but also a beloved Grade 8 teacher at John Galt Public School, a lifelong Guelphite, and an active community member. We felt the call to do something extra special to thank him for his service to our program and to the community.
After the thank you’s were given and the night seemingly concluded, the team told our coach we were heading home. Little did Coach Shayne know that we were all heading to his front lawn to reveal one last BIG surprise. While at dinner, the team had arranged for Bernardi Precast Inc. to place two 3,000-pound, solid concrete horses on Coach Shayne’s front lawn. The horses, made in 1967, were moulded from the Ford Bronco hood ornament. These statues were selected with no specific purpose or context other than them being perceived as funny.
As a team, we reached the consensus to write a speech about how a horse represents Coach Shayne’s character. Hardworking, determined, and dedicated … that makes sense, right? With our poker faces on and two seniors ready to give the heartfelt speech, we patiently awaited Coach Shayne’s arrival.
When he showed up, we think it’s fair to say he was quite surprised and suspected something fishy was going on. However, our speech was delivered with an Oscar-worthy performance, some hugs were shared, one final thank you was given, nobody broke character, and a baffled Shayne Campbell was left standing between his two new 3,000-pound friends. Entirely unsure of what to say, the community pillar that we had never heard speechless simply said, “thank you?” and waved goodbye to us all.
After an hour of letting him sweat, the fun died down, we informed Shayne that they were in fact not a permanent gift, and they would, unfortunately, be removed by the end of the weekend. Too bad, because we thought they looked pretty good there!
We would like to give a special shout-out to Coach Shayne for being such a good sport, and to his wife Judy for playing along while two enormous concrete horses were placed by crane onto her lawn. We hope our gesture showed you how much we appreciate you, Coach Shayne. In all seriousness, thank you for all the hard work you’ve put in this season. We are very grateful.