Creech: Can-do spirit makes it happen for a team without a home
On Monday, they’ll start attending Summer Creek High School.
Summer Creek will have classes in the morning and Kingwood in the afternoon.
The plan is creative. It’s going to likely come with growing pains.
But Kingwood will take it.
“I’m just glad we get to stay together and have this season,” senior CB/WR Blake Herrera said. “After everything else we’ve been through, not being able to be back on the field with my brothers would have been the toughest part.”
Several schools along the Texas coast impacted by Harvey have canceled their football seasons. Aransas Pass, Ingleside and Rockport-Fulton suspended their seasons after their schools were destroyed by the storm.
Preseason not the norm
That could have happened at Kingwood.
But Humble athletic director Troy Kite and the district’s football coaches got together and worked toward keeping Kingwood’s sports teams intact.
“We didn’t want them to lose the season,” Kite said. “We didn’t want to do that to these kids.”
Herrera is living with friend and teammate Alex Wilson. His home flooded and his parents were rescued by boat during the storm.
While he was at practice Thursday, a demolition team was at his house. The rebuilding starts soon.
Herrera, like many of his teammates, has spent the last several days tearing down drywall and ripping up carpet.
It’s not the normal workout they’d get at the beginning of a high school football season, but it’s what they’ve had to do.
This week, he also has been able to hit the football field with his teammates. For a few hours each day, he feels normal again. He doesn’t have to think about everything he has lost.
Senior LB/TB Aaron Finch’s home was spared. Barely. When it was clear that the water wouldn’t reach past the front yard, he and his father — a local preacher — went out in a boat and started rescuing neighbors.
“We probably got about 60 people out the first day,” a visibly emotional Finch said. “It was hard seeing everything these people lost. I wish we could have done more.”
Finch hasn’t stopped helping. Nor his teammates. Whether it’s cleaning out their own homes or those around them, they’ve spent time in the community.
Finch and Herrera were among a few players who swam through high waters at the high school to rescue a deer that was trapped.
They yearn to get things back to normal.
Coach Barry Campbell has worked several 16- to 18-hour days to figure out how to get the team going again.
“I never had time to think ‘woe is me,’ ” he said. “We just had to work to get things going.”
He went to the school to try to salvage equipment. He left with four footballs.
Ridge Point High School sent him more.
He gathered uniforms and sent them somewhere to see if they could be restored. He isn’t sure if they can be.
Several other area coaches reached out. They sent pads, helmets, tackle dummies, anything they could find.
Kingwood is grateful for all it.
“It’s been overwhelming how many people are supporting us and helping us,” Campbell said.
Community pick-me-up
Things will be far from normal for the Mustangs. They don’t have a home locker room. They’ll carry equipment around with them. They’ll practice in the mornings at Turner then bus to Summer Creek for school.
The coaches have laptops and will meet in a classroom at Summer Creek. It’s not ideal. But there are no complaints. Not one.
Instead, the situation is motivation for the Mustangs, who made it to the second round of the postseason last year.
“We want to go farther this year,” Herrera said. “We want to do it for this community.”
On Friday, they’ll scrimmage. They’ll be in mismatched uniforms, an array of different-colored helmets.
They’ll be grateful for every pair of pants and cleats, for every jersey.
It doesn’t matter where any of it came from.
It will all be worn proudly by the Kingwood Mustangs.