SLANT 45 Kids Like Bling, Too

It’s not “official” yet, but filmmaker Mark (Stop the Presses) Birnbaum apparently has been selected to do the full-length feature documentary on SLANT 45, the service-learning project for Super Bowl XLV that kicked off this morning with a big deal at Arlington ISD’s Berta May Pope Elementary School. Former Cowboys fullback Daryl Johnston is leading the mega-effort, which aims to involve more than 20,000 elementary kids in at least 45,000 “service-learning” (read: community help) hours in DFW. But what really got the project-participating Pope kids excited this morning was when Johnston let some of them handle his heavy gold Super Bowl ring. Nine-year-old Gabriel Ochoa (pictured wearing the ring with Zack Gehring, 10) said like Johnston he too enjoys playing football, adding: “I love being quarterback.”