Soccer Seuss Stories

Kevin Sparks has always liked Dr. \nSeuss books.\nThe freshman from the IU men's soccer team -- along with four of his teammates and six women's soccer players -- read children's books at Templeton Elementary in Bloomington last night.\nAfter an introduction to the children and their parents in the gymnasium by Templeton Principal Cheryl Smith and IU men's volunteer assistant coach Dave Giffard, groups of players broke off into different classrooms to read to a smaller group of kids.\nWith five sets of eyes fixed on them as they read "Horton Hatches the Egg" by Dr. Seuss and "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak, Sparks and IU women's soccer goalkeeper Stacey Van Boxmeer had an attentive audience.\nSparks is a Bloomington native and a Bloomington High School South graduate who attended Childs Elementary -- a school neighboring Templeton -- for his primary education. After each group finished reading, the young children asked some questions of the bigger people sitting in front of them.\n"What do you want to be when you grow up?" one child asked Sparks and Van Boxmeer.\n"A gym teacher," Sparks said after reading one of the many Dr. Seuss tongue-twisting books. "I'd like to stay in town and become a soccer coach."\n"How long have you played soccer?" asked a child in freshmen Doug Reisiger and Megan Reinhardt's group.\n"Sixteen years," Reisiger \nreplied. "When I was seven years old, I said I wanted to play soccer for Indiana because they were always the best. But you need to be able to read and have your education to do that."\nSenior Maria Gramelspacher works at Templeton as the coordinator for the Hoosiers Read Program and organized the event.\n"Sixty percent of our kids live in poverty and they don't see people they think are really important and they don't feel important," Gramelspacher said. "Their parents often work two jobs and they don't even have a parent at home to read with them at night."\nReinhardt and Sparks both said their favorite children's book growing up was "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault. Reinhardt said she's been looking for the book since the last time the IU women's soccer team performed a community service project.\n"It's an alphabet book and I absolutely love it," Reinhardt said.\nAll of the soccer players and children gathered back in the gymnasium for a final goodbye and a chance for the children to get some autographs from the players.\nSecond-grader Kaitlyn Cossey -- who plays soccer in gym class -- said her favorite part of the evening was getting an entire computer sheet of white paper filled with black ink where the soccer players had signed their names.\n"To have an NCAA athlete come to their own school and read to them is so cool for them," Gramelspacher said. "It gives them a sense of importance and reinforces the fact that they need to read"