Sept. 6, 2007

Chicago, Ill.- While most people took Labor Day off, the UIC men's gymnastics team spent this past Monday working the phones to take donations for the 42nd Annual Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon.

UIC head coach "CJ" Johnson, assistant coach Charley Nelson and the entire team volunteered to take calls for donations at the WGN Chicago call center on Monday.

The Chicago area pulled in over two million dollars in donations for the telethon to bring the national total to a record 63.8 million dollars in pledges.

One of the UIC gymnasts even fielded a pledge of $25,000.

The gymnasts even took a timeout to do a line of flips on the air, providing a moment that Chicago Telethon co-host and WGN entertainment reporter Dean Richards called one of his favorite parts of the telecast (you can see the UIC Gymnastics flip line at Dean Richards' "Dean's List" video page at http://wgntv.trb.com/news/local/deanslist/).

The Chicago broadcast of the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon was hosted by Richards, WGN reporter Dina Bair and Olympic gold medal-winning gymnasts Bart Conner and Nadia Comaneci.