Patriots score, but Attleboro school comes out winner

ATTLEBORO, Mass.—The children at Wamsutta Middle School in Attleboro had something at stake every time the New England Patriots scored Sunday.

As the team piled up the touchdowns, the school piled up computers—thanks to a weekly contest.

“I was pretty psyched,“ said Deb Carreiro, a physical education and health teacher at Wamsutta.

Carreiro said she found out Tuesday that her school was picked as the winner for the week’s Touchdowns for Technology contest.

Carreiro signed up at the beginning of the football season.

The program—sponsored by Internet security company Kaspersky Lab and radio station 98.5 The Sports Hub—gives the winning school a computer for each touchdown the Patriots score that week.

“We wanted to name Friday Patriots’ Day and get all the kids fired up for the game,“ Carreiro said. “They all wore Patriots shirts and hats.“

Come Sunday, Carreiro was a bit anxious.

“Game time I was thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh. It’s snowing. I don’t think we’re going to score a lot of touchdowns,‘“ Carreiro said.

But there was no need to be nervous. The touchdowns started coming as fast as the snowflakes.

The Patriots scored eight of them.

“Eight is beyond anything that I would have ever imagined,“ Carreiro said. “We would have been happy with one or two.“

Some of the computers will go in the school library, where some of their current machines are more than 10 years old.

“There are some that can go in the classrooms for different classes that are doing projects,“ Carreiro said.

The eight new computers won by Wamsutta are the most Kaspersky has given away in the three years it’s been running the program throughout New England. The computers will be delivered at the end of the season.

A school in Seekonk won three computers through the same contest earlier this season.