The annual Made in Ada Wilson Football Festival returned this weekend to the Hardin County village. Held at Ada Depot Park, the festival celebrated the town’s Wilson football factory and its role in producing footballs for the NFL.
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Jim Tressel knows football, and he knows Ada. The former Ohio State coach, now Ohio's Lieutenant Governor, returned to his parents' hometown Tuesday to visit the Wilson Football Factory.
Future engineers and welders got firsthand experience Friday in Lima, seeing how their college education can make an impact locally. Students from Ohio Northern University’s Technology Studies program took part in their tour of the industries.
ADA, OH (WLIO) - Students showed their skills with the pigskin during the Made in Ada Wilson Football Festival. The festival held their first …
The events were planned for all day, but in the afternoon people were seen tailgating gat Ada Depot Park.
The Wilson Football Factory is located on Liberty Street, and inside its walls lies an important part of the football season. The footballs that you see during NFL games are made here. The footballs made here are also used for high school football and college football. Special footballs are made here as well, such as ones that are specially made for the Super Bowl.
"Made in Ada" now means something more than the Wilson Football; it's world records too. The Guinness people have certified that their October 25, 2019 attempt of having the most people throwing an American football at the same time is now in the record books. While there wasn't a record before, the number to beat is now 950 people. The ball had to go at least 5 yards but didn't need to be caught. The record was set by students and staff from Ada School District, plus people from Ohio Northern University, Liberty National Bank, and Wilson Football Factory joined in as well. Wilson donated 1,000 footballs for the attempt.
Already having the Wilson Football Factory and Ohio Northern Univeristy, the Village of Ada has something new to boast about. HomeSnacks.net has ranked Ada as the seventh safest city in Ohio for 2020. The website uses FBI numbers and looks at violent crimes per capita and property crimes per capita. The website states Ada had just one violent crime in 2018 and averaged one property crime every three weeks. The police chief says its an honor to break into the top 10 having been on the list for a handful of years. He says the most important thing to their success is a good relationship with the community.
For the second time this year, a community in West Central Ohio is chasing a world record attempt. It’s only fitting the place home to the Wilson Football Factory, tries to get their name etched into the Guinness Book of World Records using footballs. But a couple thousand people didn’t gather at War Memorial Park for the glory, but to celebrate Ada and come together, all thanks to the high school principal.
Moving up the date to coincide with Ada's Football Festival, Wilson held their annual garage sale this morning.
People from near and far lined up for the four hour event to get their hands on a variety of Wilson products that have been significantly marked down. As always they had their $5 section where everything inside was just that price. Wilson had been compiling equipment for the last month to get ready for today. One shopper from Freemont, Ohio said he was their for the first time and was blown away by Wilson's event.