Charity goes dark
The online presence of former Mississippi coach Hugh Freeze’s charity vanishes,
Disgraced former Mississippi football coach Hugh Freeze started a charity in 2014 that was designed to “express God’s love” by improving the quality of life for orphans and needy children around the world.
In its first full year, in 2015, the Freeze Foundation provided $25,000 in funding to a Christian ministry in Florida and another $100,000 to an organization that supported missionaries in Africa, according to its tax form.
But now the foundation’s future is in question after Freeze resigned at Ole Miss amid questions about his personal conduct. The charity recently erased its presence online by taking down its website and Twitter account.
The charity’s executive director, Alice Blackmon, told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday that she spoke with Freeze and his wife, Jill, on Tuesday morning and said that “the couple that I know, they’re just very faithful to their calling and the mission God’s given them to serve the children, especially orphans.”
She said the charity planned to honor its pledges and would reassess its future at the end of the year. It plans to pause fundraising in the meantime.
“Coach Freeze, the man that I know, is just completely genuine and has a pure heart of gold for our mission, which is helping orphans and needy children,” Blackmon said. “So that’s where he is. He’s that same person today, regardless of what happened.”
Blackmon said the foundation was getting hit with negative feedback online after Freeze’s resignation amid controversy.
“I was just getting berated,” she said. “I am the only one who works for the foundation on a daily basis, so it was a little much. So I took that down.”
Blackmon declined to comment on the allegations. Records obtained by USA TODAY Sports show a oneminute call was made on Jan. 19, 2016, from Freeze’s university-issued phone to a number associated with a female escort service. Ole Miss said it found a “concerning pattern” when it looked into Freeze’s phone records.
The charity’s most recent publicly available tax form shows Freeze and his wife donated $275,000 to the charity in 2015, which represented almost all of the contributions it received that year, when it had no paid employees.
Blackmon said the charity would honor its pledges this year to three charity partners that support needy children: the Palmer Home for Children, Reclaimed Project and The 410 Bridge, which says on its website that “the Bible is 100% accurate.”
Freeze has worked with The 410 Bridge on mission trips to Haiti, where he and others from Ole Miss have helped people there get access to clean water, among other endeavors.
Blackmon said the charity was pausing fundraising now “until the dust settles and see where we’re going in the future.”
She said she believes in the charity’s mission and says the Freezes are staying faithful to it.
“That’s who they are,” she said. “That’s their heart. That hasn’t changed, regardless of what his occupation is. That’s their heart, their mission. They’re remaining faithful in that and honoring it.”
“Coach Freeze ... has a pure heart of gold. ... He’s that same person today, regardless of what happened.” Alice Blackmon, executive director of Hugh Freeze’s charity