While its season has long passed, Trinity Lutheran’s football team is still a tight-knit group.
This past weekend, the Cougars’ linemen made an impact off of the field by helping out two boys from the Jackson County Juvenile Home in Brownstown.
Trinity assistant coach Rob Cummins got some of his boys together — Nathan Carter, Will Frazier, Koby Frazier, Gabe Carrizales, Jake Mau, Matthew Powell, Chris Mau, Braedyn Murphy and Stone Cockerham — to give back to the community.
“We met up with a couple kids that don’t have parents from the Jackson County Juvenile Home that don’t really have opportunities like we have,” Cummins said. “A couple days before we took them to Walmart, we had them come up with a wants and needs list. Walmart made special accommodations for us. They had someone waiting on us and had someone there for pricing. They were very good to us.”
A local business, which wishes to remain anonymous, donated $500 to the group from Trinity to help make the two boys’ wishes come true for the holidays who are spending their days at the home in Brownstown.
On top of helping out the boys, the group helped out some other strangers.
“We had everything on their lists filled,” Cummins said. “We had $135 left, and we were up front taking pictures with Santa Claus, and the boys randomly picked an elderly woman in line and bought her groceries. We bought her and her sister’s groceries. The boys bagged the groceries, took them to the car and put them in the car for them.”
After leaving Walmart, the football players, coach, the two boys and some members of the school administration went back to Trinity.
“We went back to school and got out a couple footballs and threw the ball around a little bit,” Cummins said. “The two boys opened up as they got to meet the players. They started telling their story. I get emotional when I talk about it because they’ve had to endure some things.
“My boys got to hear about the environment that those boys live in. It was really a life-changing thing for them. My son, a freshman at Trinity, said that when he was little, he’d say he wanted to run away from home. After meeting Robert and Justin, he said he will never think those thoughts ever again.”
Cummins, who has coached across the state over the years, has helped put together good deeds in the past.
“I’m from up north, and this is my 25th year of coaching football,” Cummins said. “We’ve always tried to make a difference with the football team. I went to another Christian organization that didn’t allow me to do (deeds) like this the past six years. Their take was that if you do it for one, you had to do it for all.”
“The school (Trinity) signed off on letting me do it every year I’m here. When we took the boys back to the home, we bought some pizza for the whole place. For us, it’s not really a football thing.”
Cummins said the program plans on continuing to give back in various way in the future.