THE MOTHER of a Cobden export and AFL footballer turned a long-shot special guest option for a south-west charity event into a confirmed guest with one simple question.
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Belinda Rohan, the mother of Geelong forward Gary, happily assisted the South West's Big Freeze for Fight MND event, which is part of the Cobden-Camperdown round nine match on June 15, by getting her son on board.
Tracey Telford said event organisers were over the moon to have the former Sydney Swans speedster returning to his home club to go down the slide into a pool of ice in support of the worthy cause.
"We are thrilled Gary is coming along because he is obviously a Cobden boy," she said.
"We just thought it was a long shot and asked his mother, who still lives Cobden, and she said he was excited to come and chuffed to be asked to do it.
"This is only the second year and we have got a few of the local personalities and then the two football clubs to nominate some people and he is probably our biggest slider yet.
"Once we announced on Facebook that he was going to be a slider we had a lot of buzz around the event and people saying they were keen to come along and see him.
"He has really sparked a fair bit of interest in small time since we announced him."
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Rohan joins Hampden league president Tim Mason, businessman Clinton Baulch, radio personalities Trent Hill and Lachlan Rooke, Camperdown's Peter Reilly, Berni Sinnott and Kerry McGlade, Cobden's Darren Mounsey and former player Gary O'Neil on the bill to go down the slide.
Before the 10 participants are eligible to go down the slide they must raise $500 for the FightMND cause.
Telford said organisers were hoping they could eclipse last year's huge total.
"We were hoping to get $15,000 last year and we smashed it and raised $32,000, which was well above our expectations," she said.
"If we reach near that again it would be amazing and it would be very exciting. All the sliders will be doing their own fundraising, which is great."
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Sean Hardeman
I'm a sports journalist for the Warrnambool Standard who covers a number of different sports across the south-west of Victoria. I enjoy watching cycling, surfing, football, soccer and Formula 1.
I'm a sports journalist for the Warrnambool Standard who covers a number of different sports across the south-west of Victoria. I enjoy watching cycling, surfing, football, soccer and Formula 1.
