Giving back: Newton's football program helped community clean up after Hurricane Laura

Courtesy of Heather Foster

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Drew Johnston would have preferred to be orchestrating a gameplan to defeat Newton’s next opponent on the football field two weeks ago.

Instead, he was tasked with formulating a whole other type of plan: cleanup in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura.

The Category 4 hurricane made landfall in east Texas and Louisiana with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph – just 7 mph short of Category 5 classification. It was just the 10th hurricane to make landfall in the continental U.S. with winds of 150 mph or higher since 1851.

While Newton didn’t take on the brunt of Laura’s force, it definitely felt her wrath. So much so that a local state of disaster was declared by Newton’s mayor on Aug. 25.

“We were hit pretty hard,” Johnston said. “There were some places east of us, especially Louisiana, that got it worse than we did. But we had some damage here; a lot of tree damage, some power is out. I think it took a little over a week for everybody to get their power. I think I have some kids that actually still don’t have power; they should be getting it back soon.”

While many of Newton’s players were temporarily displaced in various other regions, Johnston put out a call to those that were home: we need to go help the community.

So that’s precisely what the Eagles’ football program did.

“We just wanted to help and give back to the community as much as we could,” Johnston said. “Me and my coaches, you know we live out in the country, so we all have chainsaws; my quarterback’s dad has a big, ol tractor. We just went yard to yard, some people we just drove up and saw that they needed some help.”

Pictures were posted on social media of the team’s efforts, and pretty soon the team was getting requests for help.

“I think we cleaned up about 15 yards,” he said. “Community here in Newton is a big thing and we just wanted to give back in any way we could.

“I was proud of our kids and our coaches. As soon as I said this was something I wanted to do, not one person said they couldn’t do it. Newton is a close community; it always has been. They support us and football is a big thing, so to be able to give back, I was proud of them, proud of my guys and really proud of my coaches. They worked their tail off all day.”

Newton running back DeAnthony Gatson was one of those players that had to leave the area with his family. They spent five nights in a hotel in Dallas while the storm hit.

He couldn’t believe what he saw upon returning home.

“It was bad,” he said. “One building was torn to pieces. Everywhere I went there were just trees down, bad.”

Though he wasn’t able to help out, he was proud of his teammates for stepping up to the occasion.

“It means a lot because we want them to come support us on Friday nights, so we needed to go out there and help those who had damage to their property,” he said.

Hurricane Laura forced Newton to cancel its first two games of the season, against Woodville and Diboll, respectively. Then, they were supposed to host Kirbyville on Friday, but that game was cancelled.

So, now, Newton will travel to Jasper on Friday; Jasper had an open date because their original opponent for this week, West Orange-Stark, is still recovering from the hurricane.

“Our kids are ready to go,” Johnston said. “It’s so hard for our kids to start and stop, to start and stop. They are ready to get back going and are ready to play.”

Whenever Newton does play its first home game of the season, it’ll be ready.

“Our stadium is in pretty good shape,” Johnston said. “We had some windows blown out in the visiting press box. That was about the only damage to the stadium. Everything else should be good to go and we’re making accommodations for [the press box].”

 

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