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By Joseph Staszewski
Brooklyn Daily
A Coney Island teacher received all-star treatment last week, compliments of Major League Baseball and a certain discount store.
Physical education teacher Renan Ebeid, who also serves as athletic director at Abraham Lincoln High School, was one of 30 teachers nationwide chosen to be on the field at Target Field in Minnesota on July 15 for the All-Star Game. Ebeid won a vote to represent the Mets in Target’s All-Star teacher competition, and it renewed her love for what she does.
“It makes me appreciate the job that I do even more,” she said.
She was nominated for the competition by several students at Lincoln before winning an online vote to earn the trip to the game. Mets outfielder Curtis Granderson, who visited Lincoln last spring, urged his fans via Twitter to vote for her.
Her win also helped raise more than $7 million to upgrade Lincoln’s athletic facilities, including a turf field and a fitness center.
In Minnesota Ebeid got to meet Orioles Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr., Mets second basemen Daniel Murphy, actress Idina Menzel, and Dr. Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden.
She said the best moment was being out on the field before the game as Menzel sang “Forever Young” in honor off the teachers. Her phone was flooded with texts, e-mails and voicemails afterward from students and co-workers who saw her on TV.
“It was just so nice to see how happy my staff and my own kids were to see me on TV,” Ebeid said.
Ebeid said the whole experience felt almost too good to be true.
“I felt like it as a dream and it was back to reality once we stepped back in our own states,” Ebeid said. “It was like, ‘Wow, that just happened.’ You were just on cloud nine.”