Spelling test: Near-miss for Metea practice jerseys
Metea Valley suffered its first case of mistaken identity when a box of 200 practice football jerseys arrived with the Aurora high school's name spelled "MATEA."
Athletic Director Tom Schweer said he and his wife initially missed the error when they inventoried the jerseys last Sunday before showing them to football coach Ted Monken on Monday.
"I showed him the jerseys and we both stood here saying how great these really vanilla plain-style jerseys looked and how we were ready to get them out to the kids," Schweer said. "I came in a half-hour later and looked at them and said 'D'oh! That's not spelled right.'"
The vendor agreed to replace the jerseys and Schweer said he's waiting for the new ones to arrive.
Superintendent Kathy Birkett, however, said one of the misspelled jerseys didn't make it back to the company and may instead end up in a time capsule.
"That's the price of being a new school," she said. "They all got sent back but we definitely kept one for the archives because we'll look back in 15 years and crack up about it."
Since the jerseys were discovered, Schweer said he has found himself double-checking the spelling he sees on everything related to Metea Valley.
"It tweaks you a little bit, you know," he said. "On Tuesday we got to go look at the new stadium. Everyone is looking at the quality of the turf and everything else but I'm just checking the end zones and signs and everything to make sure Metea is spelled correctly."
Schweer said he's sure the misspelling won't be the last as they begin unpacking everything else for the high school that opens in August along Eola Road in Aurora.
"We're different from the instruction program in that we have things going on already. We have to not only get some of that stuff a little earlier than everybody else, but some of it is already out to the kids so we have to deal with inventory and tracking all of that kind of stuff," he said. "We're up and running in a very real sense. And tracking all of that equipment is a pretty big task."
Schweer said everything is expected to arrive at and be organized in Metea by Aug. 3.