Thursday, October 07, 1999
Cheerios for St. Xavier
Football team gets cereal box
BY CHRISTINE WOLFF
The Cincinnati Enquirer
SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP — Team Cheerios cereal boxes will feature St. Xavier High School's football team starting next week.
The special boxes to be sold only in Ohio also picture the team from Cleveland's St. Ignatius High School — another Jesuit-run Catholic boys school.
There's no predicting how that will sell in neighborhoods dominated by Elder, Moeller and LaSalle high schools — St. Xavier's local rival Catholic boys schools.
“Next week (when St. Xavier plays Elder), there might be a lot of Cheerios in the stands,” said Paul Klems, St. Xavier's assistant athletic director.
The special edition, “Ohio Winners” Team Cheerios boxes are part of a series recognizing amateur athletic teams. About 20 youth teams have been pic tured on the boxes since the oats, corn and frosting Cheerios variant was introduced in 1997.
The two teams were chosen, according to General Mills,for athletic and academic performance.
“St. Xavier's student-athletes clearly have distinguished themselves with their outstanding efforts on the field and in the classrooms,” said Greg Zimprich, a Team Cheerios spokesman.
The St. Xavier Bombers team — which defeated Moeller 21-19 on Friday and is ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press Ohio Poll with a 5-0 record — was state runner-up in Division I in 1998. St. Xavier also averaged 24 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists annually over the past 30 years, school officials said.
The St. X-St. I box will be unveiled at 9:30 a.m. Friday with General Mills officials in the St. Xavier gym, 600 West North Bend Road, Finneytown.
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