Oak Forest HS Students Visit NFL Draft Town

Oak Forest High School Sports and Entertainment Marketing students Brooke Armistead, Keith Pedersen, Angela Elias, and Lauren Wengert pose at the entranceway to the Chicago Sports Museum, where they enjoyed the interactive nature of the displays there on a field trip. Students from the OFHS Sports & Entertainment Marketing Class and DECA club members headed to Chicago in order to take on the NFL Draft Town.

The 2016 NFL Draft was formally hosted by Chicago for its 2nd year and was nearly double the size of last year. Students were able to meet Draft prospects and former players, run a 40-yard dash against a current "virtual" NFL player, take pictures with current and former players and become totally immersed in all that is NFL. Oak Forest High School Seniors Moshood Ashogbon and Noah Ruiz even won VIP tickets for Live Draft seating for later that night.

Students also visited Chicago Sports Museum at Water Tower Place, and were able to try sport simulators, read about the history of successes, failures, curses and other notables in Chicago's sport history. OFHS Junior Lauren Wengert was eager to use the broadcast station to record a commercial for the Sports and Entertainment Marketing class’s upcoming promotion, the Bengal Cup. In the video that she filmed, Wengert said, “We congratulated the winners of each level. The people at the Chicago Sport Museum emailed it to us and we are using it in the Bengal Cup slide show.”

Students also walked down Michigan Avenue, stopping in various stores to analyze their approaches to marketing their product - including a stop at Nike Town, Nordstrom's make-up counter, Garrett's Popcorn and a Cupcake Truck. Many of the students had never had the famous popcorn of Garrett's nor had they ever eaten at a food truck!

Mrs. Gomez commented, "My goal was to expose my students to as much of Chicago as possible, while using their love of sports to gain their excitement." The Magnificent Mile walk to Grant Park and Draft Town was magnificent.

Wengert said, “I loved the Draft Town: it was really cool! They handed out many things and had so many games. You could also get gear from whatever NFL team you were rooting for. I wish we had had more time at the Draft Town.”