By Jack McCaffery
There was a hit, and a pop, and a fall. There was a trainer, and an ambulance, and a speedy ride from Widener University to Crozer Chester Medical Center. There was a realization that his football career was over. There was an urgency to plan for what would come next.
Brandon Zamonski was remembering all of that Thursday. And he was remembering one more detail about the 2008 Hero Bowl and his role in it as a Sun Valley High linebacker.
“We were the Blue team,” he said. “I remember that.”
The Blue team then.
The Blue team, 11 years later.
That was Zamonski, a rookie Morton Borough policeman, gathering at Cardinal O’Hara Thursday night with officers from 30 Delaware County departments, preparing for a mission that would mean so much to them all. Few, though, would have as literal a connection as Zamonski to the two noble purposes for the 43rd annual Delaware County High School football game: To advance the football careers of the players, and to benefit the Hero Scholarship Fund of Delaware County, which provides scholarships for the surviving children of public health and safety personnel who had died in the line of duty.
“It’s tough,” Zamonski said. “Tonight, it will mean a lot, knowing that it is for them. So I think it is cool that everybody is getting involved and taking time to be here. Everybody is willing to go out of their way to help.
“I know for me it is an honor to work and to be here.”
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