NORWICH, Conn. (May 17, 2007) – Southeastern Connecticut natives Zach Hurd (Waterford, Conn.) and Dan Ryan (Franklin, Conn.) from the UConn football team represented the Huskies at the Connecticut Defenders' Drug Prevention Day on Thursday morning, May 17, prior to the team's game against the Binghamton Mets at Dodd Stadium. The program attracted a crowd of 4,419, almost all of which were  impressionable grade school and middle school students from the metro-Norwich area.

Hurd and Ryan, along with others, addressed the crowd prior to the 10:30 a.m. game. It is the third straight year that UConn football has participated in the popular event which has seven years of history behind it. UConn got involved through Andy Baylock, UConn's legendary baseball coach and now the football team's Director of Alumni and Community Affairs, who routinely throws batting practice for the Defenders in his spare time.

Both Hurd and Ryan stuck around after their pregame speeches and signed autographs for young fans on the Dodd Stadium concourse non-stop for six innings. It was not the first time that Hurd has been on the Dodd Stadium field though. When he was younger, and presumably smaller, Hurd served as a bat boy for the team, then known as the Norwich Navigators.

The Defenders are the Class AA affiliate of the San Francisco Giants and, 6-2, losers to Binghamton on Thursday in 11 innings. Oddly, every D.A.R.E. Day game that has featured the Huskies has gone to extra innings including both ends of a doubleheader last year. It was, however, the home team's first loss.

The event received good local news coverage from the and the .

Left: As locals who succeeded, Hurd (78) and Ryan (73) are good role models to the current area youth to look up to in more ways than one...Right and below: From baseballs to hats to shirts to sneakers, the two signed all sorts of things for fans.