ANDERSON TOWNSHIP - Less than a year and a half after the untimely passing of beloved Anderson High School assistant coach Danny Celenza, his family will be honored on Meet the Team Night.
Among the festivities planned for Aug. 17 is the dedication of the Celenza Family Zone in honor of Danny, who died suddenly in March 2020 at age 37, leaving behind wife, Sarah, daughter, Ruby, and son, Jasper. Celenza was a fun-loving assistant basketball coach and was slated to join the football forces. He made friends easily and touched many lives in his time at Anderson and previously at Cincinnati Christian.
"It's pretty dang amazing to have people want to honor what was important to Danny," Sarah Celenza said. "It's so remarkable to me that he left such an impression on the students and the staff and all of the school families."
Her family has trudged on, attending sporting events, including Ruby's and Jasper's many competitions. Sarah has shown her toughness in many ways including recently pulling a snake out of the family garage in front of the kids. In between, she hustles Jasper to football practice and attends PTA meetings.
The Celenza Family Zone will now forever honor the man the "DC" initials represent on uniforms. The new benches unveiled will be made of thousands of bottle caps gathered by a Forest Hills School District service group called 9United who sorted through the donated caps in mid-July at Cherry Grove United Methodist Church. Bottlecaps to Benches as it was known was done with the cooperation of the Anderson Athletic Boosters.
The bottlecaps used are plastic caps and lids, not metal. Information on donations is at www.9united.org.
"I love it and I'm really happy about it," Sarah Celenza said. "The hope is that people gather there for non-sporting events too. I think it would be neat if SALT (Student-Athlete Leadership Team) groups met there."
"I hope by the time the kids are in high school, it's just a pure sense of pride, like yeah, that was my Dad." Sarah Celenza said of the project.
While head coach Evan Dreyer will be focused on unveiling his new Raptors football team Thursday, Aug. 19, at Princeton, he also looks forward to seeing the Celenza Family Zone in full force at Anderson's home opener Aug. 27 against Clinton-Massie.
"It's really meaningful to being able to have fans back at the game but also to do a tribute to a guy who gave so much to our school, our community and our kids," Dreyer said. "It's a special time to be an Anderson Raptor because he represented what was the best about it. I think Danny is sitting up there in heaven looking down upon us thinking how much our community has adored him. We love his kids. He's impacted us throughout a lifetime."
As far as Raptor ball, Dreyer has coached the Eastern Cincinnati Conference passing leader in four of five seasons since 2016. Jackson Kuhn likely would have been the leader in 2019 had he not suffered a late-season injury. Taking over for Kuhn is junior Griffin Scalf, one of the bigger quarterbacks the school has had at 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds. His teammates often use the term "cannon" to describe his arm.
Scalf and the Raptors will be scattered about as the free-wheeling Dreyer hopes to get 80 plays off per game. Fast-playing NCAA teams can hit 83 and Dreyer would like to match that figure to offset some of the top defenses on the schedule.
"I think Griffin has improved through basketball season and being able to run," Dreyer said. "He's a pretty big boy now. His football IQ is pretty high. The athletes here have been tremendous: Multi-sport athletes that come out, catch the ball and run around."
Scalf has two of the top ECC receivers back in Joey Faulkner (65 receptions, 840 yards in 10 games) and Evan Upchurch (50 for 821). A versatile weapon that the University of Tennessee noticed is 6-foot-6-inch, 230-pound Brody Foley who committed to the Vols in May.
Foley caught 25 passes for 233 yards last season and also played defensive line where he notched a fumble recovery and interception. He's bullish on his senior year prospects in Anderson's wide-open offense, given the extra practices allowed this summer by the OHSAA.
"I think we'll be really good and conditioned," Foley said. "I think we can score from anywhere on the field. We can take them long in the vertical pass game but we also can run our Buck Sweeps on the outside. With what we have at the skill positions, there's no reason we shouldn't put up 500 yards per game plus."
If Foley goes to the defensive line, it gives Anderson a couple of twin towers with 6-foot-6-inch Cole Hinkle next to him. Behind them is 6-foot-2-inch, 225-pound, high-motor linebacker Casey O'Toole. O'Toole has offers from Lake Erie and Capital now but could see more if the defense improves.
Last year's squad scored plenty but twice gave up more than 50 points. O'Toole and others are politely reminded of that during tense moments of practice.
"It's just flying around and having fun," O'Toole said of this year's defense. "I've just been trying to do as much as I can to help this team."
O'Toole also has family in his ear with older brother, Jimmy, returning to Anderson to coach and cousin Will Karwisch playing linebacker right next to him.
Top games ahead on the Anderson schedule are a trip to Kings Sept. 10, a home tilt with defending ECC champion Winton Woods Oct. 1 and their annual rivalry with Turpin on the Spartans' field Oct. 22.
"Our end goal is ECC champions," Foley said. "That's the goal, getting the No. 1 seed going into the playoffs."
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