Collinsville Fans Have Opportunity to Vote Fletcher Gym e Best in the State
By Mark Jurgena
Even though Fletcher Gym isn’t getting much use these days, it is still in the spotlight battling with 383 other Illinois high schools for top billing in the #IllinoisGymShowdown being conducted via Twitter by @hslogoscom.
The gyms have been split into eight brackets (labeled A-H) and each bracket has six rounds due to the amount of schools involved. The polling began May 11th and will continue until May 29th.
The CHS home oor will be paired against another school from across Illinois every other day. If Fletcher gets the most votes from fans it will move on in the challenge. Should it not get the most votes, the contest will be over for the Kahok gym- nasium.
Fans can participate in the contest if they have a Twitter ac- count. They can nd the contest by searching on Twitter for @ hslogoscom. In addition, @Ka- hokAthletics retweets where fans can click to vote for each round.
“It’s an honor to enter Fletch- er Gym in the Illinois HS Gym Challenge. Given the gym’s his- tory, tradition, and the fantastic facelift it has recently received it is one of if not the best HS facil- ity in the state,” said Collinsville
Athletic Director Clay Smith. Fletcher Gym received a bye in round one and Twitter users easily voted the Kahok gym over Rolling Meadows in round two. Fletcher Gym received 92% of the vote while the alma mater of NFL quarterback Jimmy Garop-
polo took home only 8%.
The contest is the brainchild of Seneca High School junior
Levi Maierhofer.
Maierhofer was inspired to
conduct the contest because of the recent #IllinoisHelmetChal- lenge on Twitter run by Travis Myers (@10tmyers). Myers is a Guidance Counselor and coach at Glenbrook South High School.
“There was some talk about who should do a gym challenge like this. When Wisconsin an- nounced they were going to do one, I decided I’ll run Illinois,” said Maierhofer.
He is used to being busy and taking on challenges. He runs cross country and plays baseball for the Fighting Irish and is part of the Scholastic Bowl team in the winter.
Additionally, he is the Leader- ship Team Chairman for the Sen- eca FFA and is the broadcaster for Irish Live; the Seneca sports video network on YouTube. He calls football, basketball and volleyball.
Maierhofer also runs the website highschoollogos.com. That site features the logos for high schools all across the state of Illinois including Collinsville and other Metro East schools.
Many of those same schools have entered into the gym chal- lenge as well.
In addition to CHS, the Met- ro East is also represented by O’Fallon, Alton, Belleville West and Mascoutah among others.
Bracket semi nals begin to- day May 21st, with the bracket – nals being conducted May 22nd.
The eight bracket winners will be reseeded based on their average number of votes per round.
The quarter nals will be May 25th, the semi nals will be May 27th and the nals will be May 29th.
For each round, voting is open for 24 hours until the quarter – nals are reached. At that point voting will be open for 48 hours.
NOTE: Early Tuesday morn- ing, the 3rd round of voting ended with Collinsville beating the formidable gym at Herrin 59% to 41%.
Fletcher Gym moved on to round four Wednesday against Farmington.
Results were unavailable at press time.
