I heard this on the way to the office this morning and thought it is a story that should be shared:

I'd like to give you another story that shows a different side. This
story is real. It was written by the talented Rick Reilly of Sports
Illustrated and it inspires me every time I read it:



High school football is big in America, but I suppose there is no place
where it is bigger than in Texas. Friday nights there are legend.

The fans scream; the stands are packed; cheerleaders with pom-poms jump
and sway to the beat of the school bandand everybody joins in the
chants and stomps their feet on the metal stands until you are sure
they will collapse.

This is the frenzy of Texas high school football.

But there is one football team in Texas that is a little different.
When they play on Friday night, their stands are empty, no band, no
cheerleaders, no mass of parents or townsfolk wearing the school colors
and waving banners and flags. They take the field without anyone
cheering them on. When they score a touchdown, which rarely happens,
there is no wild celebration behind them… All of it seems hollow and
muffled in contrast to the tidal wave of roars and drums and chants
that come from the opposing side.

They are the Tornadoes of the Gainesville State School, a fenced,
maximum-security facility. The young men who go to Gainesville State
are there because they have made some major mistakes in their lives.
But the players who are on the team are there because they have worked
hard and have earned enough good behavior points that gives them the
privilege to leave the facility and play football on Friday
nights—always an away game for them—always a home game for their
opponents—and almost always a loss. They don’t have a weight program or
training equipment or high-paid coaches and assistants. They don’t have
a large pool of players to draw from. The school has 275 boys, but many
are too old or too young or can’t or don’t meet the “criteria” to play.
And they don’t have the support of a town and a mass of parents and
family and reporters and bands and cheerleaders.

That is, until November 7th. Something changed. They played Grapevine Faith Christian School.

A few days before the game, the Gainesville coach, Mark Williams
received a call from Faith Christian coach, Kris Hogan, asking him if
it would be okay if Faith formed a “spirit” line for his team when they
ran on the field. Mark said, “Sure, that would be a real encouragement
to the kids.” He thought that the line would consist of a couple of the
JV cheerleaders, but when they took the field, there were a hundred
people in it and it stretched to the 40-yard line, filled with Faith
Christian parents, fans and varsity cheerleaders, complete with a
banner at the end for them to burst through that read “Go Tornadoes!”.
And then, those parents and fans sat in the stands behind the
Gainesville players and when the Tornadoes broke the huddle and went up
to the line they could hear people cheering for them, by name. When
they got a first down, “their” fans erupted.

You see, coach Hogan had sent an email out to the Faith Christian
parents and students asking them to consider doing something kind for
these young men, many who didn’t know what it meant to have a mom and
dad who cared, many who felt the world was against them, not for them.
Hogan asked that they simply send a message that these boys were “just
as valuable as any other person on earth.”

So half of the Faith Christian fans were now sitting on the visitor’s
side of the field, cheering for the Gainesville team, and in some
cases, against their own sons.
–Cheering for a team decked out in
mismatched old uniforms and helmets.
–Cheering for boys who wouldn’t go
home that night and have a smiling dad slap him on the back and feel
his mom put her arms around him and say “I’m so proud of you
son!”
–Cheering for the underdog.

This was a Friday night like no other for the Tornadoes. In the locker
room, the players were confused.
“Why are they cheerin’ for us,
coach?”
“Because, men, they want to encourage you. They want you to
know that they care about you…that you have value.”


Coach Williams said the boys were stunned. For many of these kids, it
may have been the first time that anyone had shown them, so visibly,
unconditional love.

They were down 33 to nothing at the half. Williams encouraged his team
to set a goal for the second half: to score a touchdown against this
vastly superior team. And when the boys from the State School took the
field again, with their fans cheering them on, everything started to
click. And they did score. Not once but twice.

And the fans went wild.

Coach Williams was asked what the bus ride was like on the way home and
he laughed and said that they were all asleep—their bellies were full.
That’s becuz after the game, the parents brought a whole bunch of food
over to the guys: hamburgers, fries, candy, sodas…and included in the
meal sack was a Bible and a personal letter of encouragement from a
Faith Christian player. But then, he said, they formed a line for us
out to the bus. And the parents patted them on the back and said, “Nice
game” and “Look forward to seeing you guys next time.”

As they left the field that night, Coach Williams grabbed Coach Hogan
and said to him: “You’ll never know what your people did for these kids
tonight. You’ll never, ever know.”