Help spikes for SFA player in Duke upset
DURHAM, N.C. — The biggest winner in the aftermath of Stephen F. Austin’s shocking upset of No. 1 Duke might be the fundraising effort for the family of the player who hit the game-winning layup.
A thankful Nathan Bain was still in “disbelief” Wednesday — about the contributions more than his clutch basket.
Since the end of the game, the 2-monthold GoFundMe page set up to help Bain’s family rebuild from Hurricane Dorian damage had raised $76,241 and counting at 3:45 p.m. CST on Wednesday. It’s a massive spike from the roughly $2,000 it had raised before Tuesday night’s stunning result became the talk of college basketball.
Bain said Wednesday that the donation totals had “skyrocketed” when he checked the website several times after the game.
“I was just in disbelief at what basketball had done for my family,” the 6-foot-6, fifthyear senior guard told the Associated Press by phone. “It was truly a blessing.”
The initial fundraising goal of $25,000 was increased to $50,000 — only to have it, too, surpassed by early in the afternoon.
GoFundMe spokeswoman Aja Shepherd said the Bain family site was the secondmost popular campaign Wednesday — surpassed only by one for victims of an earthquake in Albania that had killed at least 30 and in
jured more than 650 — with more than 1,500 donors from all 50 states giving an average of $36.
“I want them to know how much … we appreciate it, and how thankful we are that we’re alive,” his father, Norris Bain, a minister on the island, told the AP. “As bad as it is, it could have been a lot worse.”
Norris Bain said the storm left more than 10 feet of water in the family’s single-story home in Freeport, Grand Bahama, and was “totally gutted” with none of their possessions recoverable.
The church he runs, the Tabernacle Baptist Church, had 5 feet of water inside and its affiliated K-12 school with an enrollment of about 800 had 4 feet of water and a hole in the roof due to the Category 5 storm that hit the islands.
He said the roof has been fixed and enough repairs have been made to reopen the school, but among other issues, the phone system has not been fully repaired.
Dorian hammered the northern Abaco and Grand Bahama islands before giving a glancing blow to the southeastern United States. There were 67 confirmed deaths and 282 people were still missing as of late October along with $3.4 billion in losses for the Bahamas.
“We just want to make sure we get the people around us taken care of at the church, at the school,” Nathan Bain said. “That’s really our main focus, to make sure everyone has a place to worship and to make sure the school is taken care of so these kids can get a proper education.”
Bain scored on a breakaway layup just before the overtime buzzer to give the Nacogdoches school an 85-83 victory that sent shock waves through the sport, ending the Blue Devils’ 150-game winning streak at Cameron Indoor Stadium against nonconference opponents — a run that extended nearly 20 years.