DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum What a GREAT story!

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3789373

I read this story the other day on ESPN and it amazed me the lengths this coach went to help another team.

Grapevine Faith hosted Gainesville State School in Grapevine, Texas.

The Grapevine coach asked his fans to run out and cheer the Gainesville team when they came out of the locker room. The fans did it and even made them a banner to run through!

The coach even asked the fans to sit half and half - half rooting for their kids team and the other half rooting and sitting in the visiting section. And the parents, although thinking the coach was on drugs, went with it.

Grapevine's coach had heard that the Tornadoes were 0-8 going into the game, had only scored 2 tds all season and had archaic equipment. Gainesville is a maximum-security correctional facility north of Dallas and never have had a 'home' game. They have a lot of kids with convictions for drugs, assault and robbery and I guess many of the kids families never come to support their children.

Grapevine beat the team pretty bad, but towards the end of the game, they switched some of their DLineman to play as Safeties and the Tornadoes ended up scoring two touchdowns. The Tornadoes team was so excited they gave their coach a Gatorade bath!

When the Tornadoes were walking back to their bus under guard, each player was handed a bag for the ride home with meal, some candy, a Bible and an encouraging letter from a Faith player.

What a cool thing to do!!!!!

That is great, hopefully it will have a postive impact on some of the players from the jail team.


KING

Can you imagine how powerful that was for the prison team? That's probably more support and attention than those kids have ever experienced.

I'm curious how Faith got them on their schedule in the first place...I don't see prison leagues and private leagues meshing too often.

Good story. Glad to hear about sportsmanship.

Now, can you imagine the backlash once people found out there were Bibles included?

This is a good story. It details one of the beefs I have with the current criminal justice system. IMO, it gives people who committ crimes very little incentive to turn their lives around---and so once people get into the system, they tend to stay there.

There hasn't been any backlash that I've heard of...living a few miles from this school.

It's a private Christian school so it's within bounds.

I think the kids were shown that they are special and hopefully it makes a difference with at least a few of them.

The Rock did a movie about a real life football coach that started a football program for kids that were in lockdown (juvi)....best damn football movie I've ever seen and then to see this story it really brought a tear to my eyes. This is so wonderful of the coach and Grapevine team that it shows that there are still folks out there that truly get it.

You are right, that was a great movie.

Can you imagine if you got an email from one of your kids head coaches telling you to sit on the other side of the stadium and root for the other team? I think it would confuse a lot of folks.

If the head coach explained why he did it, then no I wouldn't be shocked, more confused than anything unless of course I had seen that movie first and it would all would be crystal clear.

Gridiron Gang is one of the best movies and I would bet dollars to donuts that this is a good idea. Give the kids a sense of self worth and hopefully they will stay out of trouble. If you haven't watched the movie, I strongly suggest you do.