By Dani Tietz
As the 2022-2023 school year comes to an end, Mahomet-Seymour football players and fans have their sights set on next season.
Athletes have been in the weight room, working on their speed, gearing up for summer camp and that late August evening when they travel to Morton to defend their undefeated 2022 regular season.
The experience is one Mahomet-Seymour graduates who played on the football team still dream about.
“Being a football player in Mahomet is not just like being on the football team,” 1998 graduate Patrick Quinn said. “It’s about being a good neighbor, and a good teammate. We learned a lot of work ethic as members of the football team throughout those years. I mean, there are still things that I think about when I get up and go to work: dedication, pride at work, too. So, being a parent and coaching players…I take those same approaches. I think that’s important.”
A four-year member of the Mahomet-Seymour football program, Quinn is also a Blue Dot member. Founded by Coach Frank Dutton in the early 1980s, the Blue Dot was a way to recognize players who had been part of the program for four years, from freshman to senior year. Other athletes could be included as a Blue Dot members if their senior class voted unanimously to give them that recognition.
With 20-30 students per class, there are now hundreds of Blue Dot graduates all over the United States. With Facebook, Quinn has been working to reconnect those members since 2018.
“I asked them, what’s your profession?,” Quinn said. What’s your family’s life?
“I got all of these great answers. I got real estate appraiser; vice president and services manager at a bank. One guy works for Microsoft, another guy’s in the army, a Scientist, a sergeant at Champaign County Sheriff’s Office, real estate. We own businesses. I’m a broadcaster.”
Because the group has seen successes in life, Quinn, working with other graduates, such as Justin Taylor and Jonah Cagley, is looking to give back through a $5,000 scholarship for a fellow Blue Dot member to receive a $5,000 scholarship during senior awards night beginning in 2024.
“I wanted (the Blue Dot) to be something bigger. So how can we make this bigger for the kids?” Quinn asked.
“(The athletes) put a lot of time and effort in the weight room, they go to camps. They spend hours upon hours with each other over the years, and there’s a lot of hard work that goes into getting good grades. So I figured, why not reward them and come up with a scholarship fund?”
The applicants, who must be a Blue Dot member and maintain a 3.0 GPA during football season all four years, will go through a blind-selection process. The money could be used to go to college or a trade school.
Quinn hopes this is just the beginning.
In order to raise funds for the Blue Dot Scholarship, the Blue Dot program will host a dinner at Mahomet-Seymour High School on June 23 from 6 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $50 per person, but current Mahomet-Seymour football players can attend for free. Tickets can be purchased here.
The future may hold other events like trivia nights or being part of 50/50 drawings at football games.
Quinn hopes that in the future they may be able to give additional scholarships.
The Blue Dot Society has set up the Frank Dutton Blue Dot Society Scholarship Fund through the Community Foundation of East Central Illinois. All donations are tax-deductible.
