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Schools

Autistic Boy Gets Wish, Meets Wyandotte Football Team

Nine-year-old Aaron Oberg was the special guest of the Wyandotte Roosevelt football team before the Bears took on Southgate Anderson this season.

When the Wyandotte Roosevelt football team takes the field on Friday nights, the bleachers are packed with students, parents and alumni, all cheering on the players.

However, the Bears recently found out that their biggest fan of all is 9-year-old Aaron Oberg, a Wyandotte boy with Autism.

On Oct. 19, the Washington Elementary School fourth-grader got a chance to meet his heroes.

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Aaron, along with his parents Arthur and Kimberly, were invited onto the field 40 minutes before that night’s game, which was against archrival Southgate Anderson.

Every player immediately greeted Aaron, shook his hand and welcomed him onto their home turf. The teens talked with the boy, gave him a chance to check out their football gear and posed for pictures with him.   

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Two weeks later, Arthur said his son is still talking about how much fun he had that night.

“He was just thrilled to death,” Arthur said. “It was really amazing.”

Aaron’s father said he was really impressed with how the Bears received his son, as well.

“They were genuinely excited to meet him," Arthur said. "They seemed to instinctively know what a difference that would make for him.” 

Things were set into motion when Wyandotte team members heard from Aaron’s mother, who is a cafeteria worker for Wyandotte Public Schools, that her son wanted to meet the Bears.

The players then talked to their head coach Ron Adams about setting up the meeting. As part of a virtue program established last season by Adams, the team has taken part in several activities to help out the community.

It was decided that Oct. 19 would be the day that Aaron would get his wish, as the Bears were already scheduled to be on the field early that night.

Wearing commemorative pink jerseys for the game, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the players met with the sponsors of the jerseys before kickoff. After the contest, the jerseys were auctioned off to raise money for Breast Cancer research.

Although the Bears were already busy with that activity; Aaron’s father said he is really happy that the Wyandotte players still found plenty of time for his son.

“We are just thrilled to death with those boys and the coaches,” Arthur said. “We don’t have enough good things to say about the football program.”

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