Knights worry, relax during hurricane
Jawon Hamilton was expecting his family to join him in Orlando after it was forced to evacuate South Florida in anticipation of Hurricane Irma, but clogged roads and a nine-hour delay forced family members to return home.
So while he watched the deadly storm make its way throughout the state, the UCF tailback spent his time thinking of his family and friends and leaning on his faith.
“I prayed for my family. I prayed for everyone down south, everyone I know friends and family,” Hamilton said following practice Thursday. “I prayed and prayed and everything turned out to be good.”
Sophomore quarterback McKenzie Milton spent the storm in his offcampus apartment with his parents. He read a book UCF coach Scott Frost gave him called “Wild At Heart.”
“It’s a good book,” Milton said with a smile. “I would recommend it.”
Other players took advantage of the power at the student dorms to watch football and play video games or board games. But senior offensive lineman Aaron Evans used the time in a more productive way.
“I slept a lot,” Evans said. “I counted up like 12 hours a day.”
The UCF football team was scattered in a variety of locations during the storm.
After UCF’s game against Memphis was called off, Frost said he felt an obligation to release players to go spend the storm with their families if they wished.
“I can’t tell you how many conversations we’ve had about what the right thing to do was,” Frost said. “Going into Memphis week knowing that the hurricane was coming. We were ready to play that game and we wanted to play that game. Once that game got canceled, we had decisions to make.
“When we tell the kids it’s too dangerous to play a football game but you have to stay here to practice, I don’t think that flies. I think we would have had a lot of parents upset and a lot of kids who would have wanted to be home with parents. So we made the decision to keep them safe, their safety was our first priority. We had about 60 percent here and a little over 40 percent left to be with their families.”
Some of the players who spent the storm with relatives are still working get back to campus.
UCF hit the practice field for the first time in a week Thursday, with the Knights looking for a return to normalcy in the wake of the hurricane.
Frost and his team got back to work looking to knock off some of the rust that might have accumulated with not playing a football game since Sept. 2.
“It was a little sloppy, a little rust on them. That’s why we’re practicing today and tomorrow to try and get that off and to try and get back into a route next week,” Frost said following practice. “We’ve got to react to whatever circumstances were presented with, and we’re going to do the best we can.” to