Senior watches as football legends film documentary at local HyVee

On a chilly Tuesday morning on Jan. 25, excited football fans woke up early to rush their way to Hy-Vee. Rumors claimed that NFL stars Kurt Warner and Peyton Manning were in town shooting scenes for an upcoming episode that would appear on Manning’s documentary, Peyton’s Places, set to release summer of 2022 on ESPN+. Waiting outside with the many other thrilled football fans was Dax Stotser, a senior at Cedar Falls High School. “I met up with a few of my friends around 8 a.m. after hearing from one of them that Peyton Manning and Kurt Warner were at our local Hy-Vee,” he said. Although Dax has always been a Seattle Seahawks fan, he said that he didn’t want to miss the opportunity of meeting two NFL Hall Of Famers.

“As a Seahawks fan, the rivalry between the Seahawks with Peyton Manning was not enough to keep me from trying to meet him. As an Iowan, it’s not everyday you have two NFL greats walking around your local grocery store,” Stotser said.

Sami Muhammad, an employee at Hy-Vee, worked the day of Manning and Warner’s arrival. “Our team had two main focuses working that day, and one of them was to control the crowd of fans by setting employees around the food department. The other set of employees were asked to help set up the camera crew’s equipment for shooting the scenes. Afterwards, our employees helped take the equipment apart due to the tight time schedule we had,” he said

After two hours of waiting went by, Stotser finally made his way into Hy-Vee and saw the vast amount of people surrounding the two players at the yogurt section, but he missed his chance to get a picture or autograph from the pair due to the other excited football fans. 

“As soon as I made my way to the crowd, I noticed the active camera crew and the two NFL stars filming at the cold yogurt section. I was super excited after seeing the pair through my own eyes instead of television or a screen. Before the crew shot the scene for their documentary, the Hy-Vee staff asked people to move and make their way to the doors due to NFL players’ time slot. I was kind of disappointed because I wanted to at least get a picture with one of them. Although, I did have a second chance to get a picture while the two went to their cars, but I didn’t want to be disrespectful and rush them like the other football fans,” he said.