Posted by
Billy email MADBillyD@aol.com on Monday, November 24, 2008 11:16:20 AM
Kevin Kush took the locker-room floor.
Thirty-five young men with checkered pasts, hailing from 12 states, stared at him. With blue jerseys covering their shoulder pads, the pride of Boys Town listened to their coach before their state football playoff game against Syracuse last Saturday.
You don't have what your opponents have, Kush told the kids. You can't go home to your own house. You don't have parents.
But, Kush said, let me show you what you do have.
He pushed open the locker-room doors and beckoned his team to follow. On the other side, cheering, stood close to 600 Boys Town residents, faculty, staff and alumni.
When the undefeated Cowboys walk into Memorial Stadium on this Saturday morning, they won't simply be playing for a Class C-1 state championship. They'll be representing thousands of wayward boys and girls who have found direction at Boys Town - and hundreds of folks who have helped them become better people.
What happens Saturday against Pierce High School is about more than pigskins and three-point stances. It's about the abandoned finding a family, the transient settling into a home, the lost finding a path.
"These kids aren't alone," Kush said. "What they do on the football field and what they do in life, people here care about them the whole way."
Kristi Stowe is a Boys Town lifer. She has been the facility manager for the campus conference center for 31 years. She has about as little in common with Boys Town residents as possible, coming from a stable, loving, two-parent family.
But Saturday, she'll be nestled in the stands screaming for the Cowboys. When she isn't crying.
Stowe's husband, Bud, loved the Boys Town football team. The campus carpenter - responsible mainly for repairing broken glass - for years volunteered to man the chain gang at home football games. He braved frigid weather, holding first-down markers. Bud often sneaked away from his carpenter shop in the afternoon to watch the team practice.
Cancer claimed Bud's life in January. The team made him an honorary member this season.
Kristi Stowe went to hardly any games while Bud was a volunteer, because she didn't like sitting alone. But she'll be there Saturday to celebrate the team and honor Bud's memory.
"Everyone on campus gets excited about these kids' success and heartbroken over their failures," she said. "To see them out there on Saturday, it's huge."
(It is nice to see kids who for whatever reason have had things go the wrong way, have something they can be proud of. Read the whole story about these kids and how their school has changed lots of boys, Boys Town recaptures its gridiron glory days. )
(Even though Boy's Town came up short that doesn't change the great things their school has done on and off of the field.Class C-1 State Football Championship: Pierce 20, Boys Town 10.)
