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Dec 28, 2008

"The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves." --Helen Keller

Cheering for the Other Side

They played the oddest game in high school football history last month down in Grapevine, Texas. It was Grapevine Faith vs. Gainesville State School and everything about it was upside down. For instance, when Gainesville came out to take the field, the Faith fans made a 40-yard spirit line for them to run through. Did you hear that? The other team's fans. More than 200 Faith fans sat on the Gainesville side and kept cheering the Gainesville players on -- by name. Only when you saw the 12 uniformed officers escorting the 14 Gainesville players off the field did it all start to make sense. They lined the players up in groups of five -- handcuffs ready in their back pockets -- and marched them to the team bus. That's because Gainesville is a maximum-security correctional facility 75 miles north of Dallas. Every game it plays is on the road. This all started when Faith's head coach, Kris Hogan, wanted to do something kind for the Gainesville team.