A Barrie teen was able to see all his hard work pay off today.
Jonah Leichner, a grade 12 student at Innisdale Secondary School, organized and hosted a six-team, 75 player tournament camp on Good Friday all by himself.
Despite the rainy weather, the 18-year-old says the event was a lot of fun. Leichner has been playing football for many years and the goal today was to share that passion with others.
"I really want to work on the exposure of football here,” Leichner said.
“It was a lot of work, like a lot of preliminary work, like just organizing everything. Ordering all the custom shirts for the kids, getting the pizza, setting up the field. Everything was a lot of work, even the little things.”
Nick Burns, who runs Super Elite Football, a local academy, also came out to the tournament to show his support.
“Jonah, the organizer, has come through our program for the last few years and he put this event on his own, and I am just here to support him. He’s done a great job for Simcoe County football.”
Burns is also a high school teacher in Simcoe County, and is very impressed.
“To be able to have all these schools represented in Simcoe County, to be able to have a high schoool student run this, it's absolutely unbelievable. When I was in high school I was not doing stuff like this. So I am really proud of him." Burns said.
Leichner says organizing such a large event taught him resilience. He now hopes to take these skills and use them towards his future endeavours.
