Foes on the field, high school athletes unite for Harvey relief effort

Occasionally it takes something bad to to see the good in others.

Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 tropical nightmare that made landfall on Aug. 25, hit south Texas, including Rockport, Port Aransas, Aransas Pass and Corpus Christi.

But its damage didn’t stop there, dumping record rainfall on Houston and its surrounding areas.

This came a week before the start of the Texas high school football season. With more than 40 inches of rain in most areas, programs from Edinburg to Beaumont had to cancel Week 1 games.

At least 115 games were canceled, and affected communities had more pressing problems than a football game. Schools hundreds of miles away started donating money, food and clothing, and doing anything possible to contribute to the relief of those touched.

“It’s very touching and puts life in perspective,” said Susan Elza, UIL director of athletics. “To see the compassion in people during unimaginable scenarios like this — a hurricane of historic proportions in the state — and to see the outpouring of support, it’s so refreshing.”

Saginaw Boswell and Burleson Centennial kicked off their season Sept. 1, but in the days leading up to the game, the opponents united for the relief cause and raised nearly $5,000.

“Coach [Kyle] Geller and I talked and decided to join forces,” said Boswell coach John Abendschan. “Both campuses had donations during lunch for three days where the students gave money. It was a neat deal to see everyone join in and donate to help somebody else — how can you not feel compelled to reach out?”

The Texas High School Coaches Association played a big part in getting things started.

“The THSCA made a humongous effort of reaching out to all the schools and saying ‘let’s give, whatever you can do’ so we’ll be donating our check to them and they’ll distribute it out,” Abendschan said. “I’m thankful to be a part of an association that thinks bigger than themselves.”

Executive Director D.W. Rutledge says not only Texas coaches are getting involved, but coaches associations from four or five states were contributing. Anyone from coaches to parents can continue to send monetary donations to the THSCA.

“When Hurricane Harvey occurred and you saw all the schools, communities, coaches and players affected, we felt like there was something we had to do,” said Rutledge, who coached Converse Judson to four UIL state titles. “We made it easy to put into place for others, and 100 percent will go to the American Red Cross.”

Boswell and Centennial weren’t the only football teams involved. Donations were also raised at last week’s Fort Worth Benbrook-Ponder game, as well as Cleburne vs. Stephenville; Midlothian Heritage vs. Sunnyvale; Boerne Champion at Prosper; and Arlington Lamar vs. Keller Fossil Ridge.

Lamar football coach Laban DeLay said the program is planning to take in donations for all of its home games. The Vikings’ volleyball team has done the same.

“One of my booster club members thought about it, so we started taking donations to give to the Red Cross,” DeLay said. “We just want to help, and we love the game of football, but it’s a small thing whenever you watch the news and see what’s going on down there. Our thoughts and prayers go to those affected and we’ll do anything to help.”

Football isn’t the only sport donating as a number of programs in the area have put in their time to help Harvey victims.

Birdville girls basketball coach Amy Ingram and her team are adopting College Park High School and helping its displaced kids throughout the year.

Hundreds of students have volunteered to load trailers with donated items. At Richland, the Rebels are accepting T-shirt donations until Thursday. Assistant coaches Chuck Wells and Monte Sparkman came up with the idea after seeing it at the University of Houston.

“Obviously being from Texas, we want to support Texans and we were looking for a way to do that and I saw coach Kelvin Sampson’s tweet out of Houston asking for T-shirts,” Sparkman said. “Coach Wells and I got together and decided to do a T-shirt drive and we’ve been doing it for a half a week. We got quite a few shirts and we’re looking forward to sending those down to Houston.”

Celebrities are helping too. Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt has raised more than $28 million through his fund; Jimmy Fallon and The Tonight Show donated $1 million; Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander donated $10 million, while point guard Chris Paul pledged $50,000; former Texas Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish donated $100,000; and Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki is donating all the proceeds from his Sept. 16 tennis tournament, and Mavs owner Mark Cuban will match it up to $2 million.

Dallas-Fort Worth also opened its arms. The Kay Bailey Hutchison Center in Dallas and the Wilkerson-Greines Activity Center and Worth Heights Community Center opened their doors for Beaumont and other Gulf Coast residents.

On Labor Day, the Star-Telegram partnered with the Kimbell Art Museum, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art toward accepting donations to be shipped to the affected areas.

“What a great way to come together as a community and a state to help out our own,” Sparkman said. “The question was never ‘are we going to,’ it was what can we do to help those down there and this is the first step of a wave of support for those affected. We just want to help as much as possible.”

This story was originally published September 6, 2017 at 8:39 PM with the headline "Foes on the field, high school athletes unite for Harvey relief effort."