It turns out toilets can be used for something more than just the obvious.
In fact, Brad Schaack and the Jamestown High School girls' hockey team used three stray stools to raise a nice chunk of change for a really good cause.
Several parents of team members got together and formed a plan to raise money for the Stutsman County Relay For Life Cancer Walk-A-Thon.
In one of the more unique ideas for raising money, they decided each team member would be in charge of one toilet for a week. Each toilet would be placed in somebody's yard. To get the toilet removed, that person would have to pay $30 and the stool would be hauled away. If not, the offending toilet would sit in their yard for two days. They'd still have to pay $20 and face the possibility of the potty returning in the future.
It was all in good fun of course, but it worked out quite well.
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"We had a lot of people that were good sports and pretty generous," Schaack said.
They also had a pair of car washes to raise money -- one here and another in Valley City -- and Schaack really swallowed hard when he was photographed in a dreaded Minnesota Golden Gopher hockey jersey, no small feat for the Sioux-loving Schaack. He posted the photo on a college hockey chat room he frequents and before long another $500 was raised.
"I very much dislike the rodents, so putting that jersey on just didn't feel right, but in the end something good came out of it," he said.
All told, the team raised over $3,500, which will be donated to cancer-related charities.
Schaack and his team will also participate in today's Relay for Life walk-a-thon, which begins at 6 p.m. at Greeno Field and concludes at 6 a.m. on Saturday.
It's a cause near and dear to Schaack's heart. His dad James died from colon cancer at the age of 46.
He credited Karen Finck, the mother of goalie Carissa Finck, for getting the ball rolling and things really took off from there.
"The overall response was great. It was something these girls can feel really good about," Schaack said.
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It was also a nice team-building exercise for the Blue Jays, who are coming off a 7-13-1 season, but their record was deceiving. They were competitive in virtually every game they played and lost a pair heart-breakers at the state tournament to West Fargo (3-2 in overtime) and Minot (2-1) -- two of the top teams in the state.
"Things like this are great for team-bonding. They can't do anything but help," Schaack said.
He's also been after his girls to keep improving over the summer.
"We made some real nice strides last season, but we don't want to be satisfied with that," Schaack said. "We still have things to do and we want to keep moving forward and see girls' hockey in Jamestown grow."
Sun sports editor Dave Selvig can be reached at (701) 952-8460 or by e-mail at daves@jamestownsun.com
