Bonny Eagle High School Students Represent Maine in Financial Football Competition

December 11, 2007

Foxborough, MA – 20 student-athletes from Bonny Eagle High School in Standish participated on December 11 in an event called “Financial Football” at Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. The team included ten male athletes and ten female athletes, representing the football, girls’ soccer and field hockey teams. Bonny Eagle won the 2007 Class A football state championship and was selected to participate in Financial Football by State Treasurer David Lemoine in honor of that accomplishment.

Financial Football, a product of VISA, is an interactive financial education video game that follows the rules of an NFL football contest. Teams are given questions on topics such as mortgages, interest rates and student loans. If questions are answered correctly, a virtual ball is advanced downfield with the goal of scoring a touchdown. If questions are answered incorrectly, a team suffers a loss of yardage.

The December 11 event brought high school teams from every state in New England together to compete in Financial Football. Maine played a team from Vermont and managed a 7-7 tie.

New England Patriots players Wes Welker and Dan Koppen joined the teams as honorary coaches. Welker acted as the Maine team’s coach while Koppen coached Vermont.

“Walking through the locker room, you see a lot of big diamond earrings and things like that,” Welker said in front of the students. “Whether it’s a dollar here, a dollar there, just put it away. There's a big difference between want and need.”

State treasurers from around New England were also on hand.

After the game, the Bonny Eagle students were given copies of Financial Football on CD-ROM and autographed photos of Welker.

Financial Football is one of several initiatives that the Office of the State Treasurer is working on to help more Maine residents, and especially Maine students, develop strong money management skills for life. The Office is currently administering a grant-making program to support financial literacy projects in Maine and recently produced a recorded financial literacy training seminar for Maine teachers.