Hurricanes

Team members hand out school uniforms at an elementary school on Sunday.

MIAMI — For the better part of the last two weeks, the Miami Hurricanes have been battling for playing time, learning their playbooks, attending team meetings and logging hours on the practice field in brutally steamy South Florida conditions.

It would have been hard to fault any of them for wanting to take a breather on Sunday considering they had scrimmaged late into the night on Saturday and classes are set to begin at Miami on Monday.

But instead of catching up on their sleep or spending the afternoon relaxing, nearly two dozen Hurricanes piled into Miami’s team buses and made the trek from Coral Gables to Miami’s Overtown neighborhood to hand out more than 200 school uniforms to students at CARE Elementary.

Sunday’s visit to CARE was the latest in a series of community outreach events for the Hurricanes, who have spent a significant amount of time this offseason visiting with students at local elementary schools, delivering school supplies to students in need, spending time with patients at Holtz Children’s Hospital and serving meals at the Miami Rescue Mission, which is located across the street from CARE Elementary.

“A lot of the kids who go to school here are children of shelter families and it just kind of pulls at your heartstrings a little bit,” said Joel Rodriguez, who as one of the Hurricanes’ directors of player development helped coordinate Sunday’s uniform distribution. “When you meet with the principal and hear how no kid pays a dime to go to school here even though it’s a private education, we just wanted to help out and we had the means to do it. We asked what we could do to help … we could bring backpacks or whatever they needed and their response was uniforms. … That was the green light for us.”

Delivering the uniforms was only part of the Hurricanes’ involvement Sunday afternoon. More than a few players spent part of their visit to CARE signing autographs, posing for pictures and playing with the students during their last day of summer vacation.

And their smiles were nearly as big as the ones on the faces of the students.

“It’s everything. This makes me feel good. It feels like scoring a touchdown,” said Hurricanes running back DeeJay Dallas. “You’re scoring a touchdown in their heart.”

Added linebacker Bradley Jennings Jr., “This is very big for the community. To come out and give the kids uniforms and everything, to play with them and interact, it’s good. … I know a lot of kids play around by the park I grew up at down here, so it’s good to come back and see some of the kids.”