Most high school basketball teams usually have plenty of fans cheering them on but, what happens when your opponent's whole student body is confined to detention?
You loan them some of your own school pep is what you do.
That's what a Texas high school team did when they played the Gainesville Tornadoes — a school where the teenage players reside at a juvenile correction facility in nearby Gainesville and the students are only granted the rare perk of attending games if they exhibit "very good behavior."
The Tornadoes typically have more players on the court than fans sitting in the stands.
Well, Vanguard College Prep in Waco, found out about their lack of support and surprised them with an act of kindness when they met on the court.
The Vanguard team — led by Hudson Bradley and Ben Martinson — asked half of their fans to cheer for the Tornadoes ahead of the match-up and even donated a team of cheerleaders to cheer on their opponents, according to cbsnews.com.
"No one likes playing in an empty gym," said Martinson.
"It doesn't seem right" to play a team with no fans, said Bradley about their opponents whose own parents rarely show up at games.
The Gainesville players had no idea what was happening beforehand. They were overwhelmed by the scene when they walked onto the court to find their own signs of school spirit, their own cheerleaders, even their own fan section.
Half the crowd was assigned to cheer for Gainesville. But as the game went on, everybody started to cheer for the Gainesville facility.
And The Breakfast Club it's not.
Gainesville is a fenced, maximum security state school and the largest juvenile correctional facility in Texas. It houses almost 300 low-risk juvenile felony offenders.
Half the crowd was assigned to cheer for Gainesville. But as the game went on, everybody started to cheer for the Gainesville facility.
And The Breakfast Club it's not.
And the act of kindness certainly had a huge effect on the young offenders. "Usually our fan base was close to zero," one Gainesville player said about the gesture. "When I'm an old man I'll still be thinking about this."
That's a loud enough cheer for Vanguard.
Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing this awesome story. This generation of teens is something else to think this way / unless these two were from another planet (probably not).
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for taking the time and sharing this awesome story. This generation of teens is something else to think this way / unless these two were from another planet (probably not).
ReplyDelete