Skyline faithful celebrate Kenyon Sadiq’s big day in Idaho Falls
William Syslo
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) – Today at Eagle Rock Middle School, the Skyline High School Alumni Association put on an NFL Draft watch party. The reason? Kenyon Sadiq, a former Skyline High School football player, was projected to be a first-round pick.
“This is a really, really cool opportunity,” Skyline Principal Josh Newell told me, ahead of the party. “Kenyon is a great young man, and we had the opportunity to have him here for a few years… we all kinda feel like we’re part of it you know? So tonight we’re really excited to be able to do that.”
As fans streamed in, they had plenty to do and eat before the draft began. Olive Garden and Buffalo Wild Wings provided food for those in attendance. Vantage Point Homes provided pizzas, and Discovery Construction provided beverages.
The Skyline band was playing all night, Skyline’s student government ran trivia, the baseball and football teams ran a 50/50 to raise funds, and they had a “guess where Kenyon will be drafted” game.
This was a huge undertaking that all resulted in one electrifying moment when Sadiq was announced as the 16th overall pick to the New York Jets, sending the Eagle Rock auditorium into a frenzy. A camera streaming to ESPN was present to capture it all, and when the watch party was shown on the national broadcast, the crowd erupted yet again, maybe even louder the second time around.
“To celebrate a kid like this is easy,” Bridger Taylor, who coached Kenyon at Skyline, told me. “…He was one of the best kids you’d ever wanna be around…”