If there’s any truth to the saying “You are what you eat,” then the Fort Worth Brewer Football Booster Club is on the right track.

The club’s primary goal in 2019 was to make sure the Bears had high-quality, nutritious meals each Friday before they took the field.

“One of the focuses of the new coaching staff was nutrition,” club president Terrance Durham explained. “We made it our primary objective to make sure that everyone – not just the players but all of the students associated with the program – had meals consisting of lean proteins.”

The club’s leadership worked closely with associate athletic director Scott Galloway, who’s also a licensed athletic trainer, to determine what each Friday’s meal needed to consist of. Then they approached restaurants to help provide the food that would fuel the Bears on Friday nights.

“The coaches asked the club to carry a bigger burden with this,” Durham said.

The club made sure that the players and support students – trainers, videographers and managers – all had either Gatorade or Powerade to drink and healthier options for pregame snacks that consisted of baked chips over less healthier options. Then restaurants donated protein-based meals that the team dined on in the cafeteria before heading over to the stadium for home games. Durham said Jimmy John’s, which had fed the team before all its games in 2018, continued to provide meals prior to away games.

“I’m very proud of our club that we were able to feed these kids every Friday,” Durham said. “I think that was our biggest success. We didn’t miss a meal.”

While the club supports the football team, it also wants to support the greater Brewer Bear community. Many of the football players play other sports, and many of the parents, who serve the football booster club, have leadership positions in clubs that support other sports.

“Our mantra is one team, one school, one family,” Durham said. “We want to promote overall school spirit too. We have relationships with the other club presidents. We communicate. We work together.”

While family means embracing other sports at the high school, Durham also wants to make sure that football players – and their families – at the middle school are included in everything as well. That spirit of inclusion is about growing the program – both on the field and in the booster club’s membership ranks. Durham said getting families into the club earlier helps keep things running smoothly and makes leadership transitions smooth.

“We really want to build up the involvement of parents of younger players,” Durham said. “If we wait until students are in high school or make it to varsity football, by the time those parents get involved, the people they need to learn from are leaving. The earlier people get involved, the earlier they learn how they can help and that has a trickle-down effect.”

The more families that join the club and take an active role, the more successful each of the club’s fundraising efforts – whether that’s getting more local businesses on board as partners, selling more ads for the football programs or simply increasing the amount of families paying their dues. More is better.

“It definitely trickles down,” Durham said. “The club supports football in the district, so if we raise enough money to meet the needs of the high school and the middle school program needs something, we are in a position to help meet those needs as well.”

With the 2019 season behind it, the club is already focusing on its 2020 calendar of events. In January the club organizes and hosts the annual football banquet. Once the banquet wraps up, it begins working toward spring football and the events that will lead up to and throughout the 2020 season.

“Our mission is very simple,” he said. “We support the football program in the form of volunteering and extra funding. Every decision we make is based on two questions. First, is it good for the kids? Second, how is it good for the kids? This allows us to focus directly on the reason we are all here.”

_____

Become a DCTF Insider today for exclusive insight from the best team of reporters in the Lone Star State! CLICK HERE!

Your subscription will include:

• Instant access to all of our content that is marked Insider at www.texasfootball.com.
  • Includes exclusive podcasts, recruiting news, and our full High School Football rankings and score predictors
• A mailed copy of the Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Preview 
• A mailed copy of the Recruiting/Rising Edition of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football
• Access to Dave Campbell’s Texas Football vast array of archived magazines