The ride of a lifetime could continue with floral scents for the dozen middle-schoolers comprising El Segundo’s Little League World Series championship team.
Talks are in the works to include the champs in the 2024 Rose Parade, according to both the Tournament of Roses officials and El Segundo’s mayor. But to be included in the parade, El Segundo is going to need a float, according to officials.
It took just one day after El Segundo Little League cinched the World Series win for the Tournament of Roses to reach out to Mayor Drew Boyles.
There were a couple of slots left for new entries, wrote a tournament official in an email to Boyles. Did El Segundo want one?
At the time, the city and the league were in the thick of planning their own events, Boyles said in an interview Monday, Sept. 11. But now, with watch parties and municipal parades behind them, things could be coming up roses.
“It’d be an honor to have either city or the league or local business represented,” Boyles said.
The issue is, he added, they’d have to rally rather quickly to do so.
The Tournament of Roses is eager to have the champs highlighted and reached out to Boyles “in a gesture of goodwill,” said Candy Carlson, director of communications for Tournament of Roses.
“A float would be the perfect platform to honor the hard work and dedication of these young athletes,” Carlson said in a statement.
But, she added, ESLL would have to be associated with a float, either as riders or walkers on the side of the float, to participate.
So Boyles has his work cut out for him, he said. There are plenty of companies in town, but getting one to sponsor a float on short order might be difficult, he added.
Boyles is eager to show off his town of 11 square miles and the fact that El Segundo has, itself, been thrust onto a bigger stage is not lost on him.
“We’re always fighting to be known as a ‘beach city,’” Boyles said before the hometown parade the city hosted for the…
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