REINBECK – Despite all the pomp and pageantry that accompanies playing for the Class A state championship at the UNI-Dome – a veritable Mount Parnassus or Mecca for high school football teams – one former teammate never strays far from the busy minds of the players that ornament the third-ranked Gladbrook-Reinbeck football team’s roster. That person is Noah Ohrt, who died of Ewings Sarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer, in March. He was 17, then a junior at GRHS. Ohrt was a personal friend of many of the players who don the Rebel uniform. He touched their lives and his personality remains fresh in their memories. “He was a great guy on and off the field,” Gladbrook-Reinbeck senior Logan Flamme said. “He liked to have fun and he loved football. He just loved it. He was always fun to play with. “We wish he was here. He would have been a great guy to have around both on and off the field and in the stands. And I feel like he’s yelling for us up there.” “He got along with everyone,” Bryce Ehlers added. Ohrt’s legacy on the team manifests itself in the form of the bell they ring in honor of him before every home game and at halftime, and in the stickers PNH [Play for Noah] that are featured on the back of every Rebel helmet. “The boosters wanted to get something that we could do every Friday night to remember him so they bought a bell and one of the player’s grandfathers made a stand [for it to rest on],” Ehlers said. “We have been setting it up for him every night. The bell is for Noah.” “It’s just a big deal to the community because he meant a lot to everyone,” Zach Pierce added about Ohrt. “It’s really tough for us to lose him but it’s kind of a little motivation and I’m lucky enough to get to wear his jersey.” Like Pierce, Ohrt wore No. 74 when he played for G-R his freshman year. While the bell has traditionally been reserved solely for home games, the team made a special exception when they earned a chance to play at the UNI-Dome. The bell was there when Gladbrook-Reinbeck defeated Denver 21-8 last Friday and it will be there when the Rebels take on undefeated and top-ranked Logan-Magnolia for the state championship Thursday. “We definitely think of him every game,” Ehlers said. “Definitely always winning for him. We play for him.”