Schools
VIDEO: Glen Rock Teens Create Viral Sports Sensation
Four juniors at Glen Rock High School are behind the game 'totting,' a monumental marshmellow challenge of trick shots that has gone viral.
It might draw snarls from the lunch ladies, but throwing food in the Glen Rock High School cafeteria has birthed a sport that's gone viral.
"Totting started out with just some simple fooling around in lunch," said Ryan Pulford, a 16-year-old junior at . "Jake [Pellegrino] bought tater-tots and we started throwing them up and catching them in our months."
Soon enough, Pulford, Pellegrino, Anthony D'Onofrio and Joey Cinquegrana were performing stunts, coining their creation "totting."
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But tater tots had their limitations. You're not always near an oven and potato-stained pockets aren't in favor on the catwalks of Paris nor the laundry rooms of Glen Rock.
"We realized that large marshmallows would be more suitable for what we were doing because they were easier to acquire yet provided more of a challenge for us to catch due to their larger size," Cinquegrana said.
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Soon, the foursome released a video on YouTube detailing their impressive tricks. Some hype resulted from the first totting video, but it really only caught on locally.
"A lot of younger kids like 7th and 8th graders are totting," D'Onofrio remarked. "It is just great to be able to tot when there is nothing else to do!"
Totting 2.0 has proved to be the watershed moment for the group. The video quality improved, and the shots were undoubtedly more challenging.
There are tosses from swingsets, down slides, over the Glen Rock boulder, above passing trains, onto street lamps they're clinging onto, and all in all, generally impressive acrobatics.
It's drawn the interest of big media outlets and now checks in with about 80,000 views.
"The first big thing was when Brobible.com re-posted it, [and] there were a bunch of other re-posts by other blogs after that," Pulford said, adding, "Sports Illustrated posted us as the 'Trick-Shot Video of The Day' on their website. Yahoo Sports posted an article on us, and we were featured on MSN's home page."
Be on the lookout for the third totting video, which the group says should be out soon. The landmarks may look unfamiliar, though.
"The hardest part at this point has become coming up with more creative shots," noted Pellegrino. "Now that we have filmed in most of Glen Rock we are going to start taking our filming to different locations."
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