Overley trades Red Devils for red fire trucks

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Marshall Overley is no stranger to the classroom. But Friday he got an education of a different sort.

The retired West Lafayette football coach spends much of his time in biology classes at West Lafayette High School. But early Friday morning, he found himself at Fire Station 1, learning what it takes to be a firefighter.

At the urging of one of his former players, West Lafayette Fire Chief Tim Heath, Overley jumped at the chance to be a firefighter for a day. Overley says he was shown all the equipment on the truck, then he got to dress the part.

"They dressed me up in the fire equipment with the mask and all the air equipment and said we're going to crawl these stairs," he says. "And I made it up one flight and that was the best I could do.  You can see why they train so much."

Overley says while he'd like the chance to go on a run with the firefighters, he's not hoping for any problems in West Lafayette. His shift ends at 7 a.m. Saturday.