Stokes’ roots are old school

Rick Devereux

The notion of “doing something nice for someone for no reason at all”

is a motto the founders of Irrelevant Week live by. Paul Salata, a

Newport Beach resident and businessman, started the tradition of

flying the last pick in the NFL Draft to Southern California as a

guest of honor for a week of celebrations in 1976.

Andy Stokes, this year’s Mr. Irrelevant after being the 255th and

final pick in the NFL Draft by the New England Patriots, is a tight

end from William Penn University in Oskaloosa, Iowa.

The NAIA school of about 1,500 students was named after William

Penn, someone who, like Salata, believed in benevolence toward

neighbors.

Penn was born in 1644 in London. His father was an admiral in the

English Navy and was constantly away from home.

Penn became a Quaker and suffered religious persecution in England

because of his beliefs. He went to King Charles II in 1681 and

convinced the king to sign a charter for land in the New World. The

land was named Pennsylvania after Penn’s father.

A year after coming to America, Penn formed Philadelphia and

proposed a government which provided secure private property, free

trade, freedom of the press, equal rights for women and trial by

jury. Penn called Pennsylvania his “Holy Experiment.”

There is an engraving above the northern entrance of the U.S.

Capitol building in Washington, D. C. depicting Penn’s famous treaty

with the Leni Lenape Indian tribe from Delaware.

Penn was one of the few Europeans who learned American Indian

dialects, which enabled him to conduct negations without an

interpreter.

Though he died after a stroke in 1718, Penn set an example of

freedom and liberty that later generations would use to form the

basis of the United States of America.