ESPN Story on Arlington-Parkersburg IA HS

Out in the sticks100+ posts

Great story that I saw on a small town (pop. 1900) that had been wiped out by a tornado.
HS Football was a pretty big part of the town and it became a priority for the community to rebuild the stadium. It rallied the community back together after a terrible natural disaster. One quote that caught my attention was from the HC of the football team. "If the only thing we teach your son is the game of football, then we have failed as coaches."
How many coaches do you know that want to not only teach the game, but also help teach fundamentals of being a better person?
You can view the full story at www.E60.com.

9/16/088:48 PM

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Original Post

IowaPlayer510+ posts

Aplington-Parkersburg (AP) is only 25 miles from where I live. It is a small town, but the football tradition their is amazing. They have four guys currently playing in the NFL, which is unreal. They live and die football in AP. Their coach has been their for like 35 years. At AP they have about 120 boys is highschool and they get 100 out for football. Football is a religon in AP.

The tornado completely took out one side of town. I believe it took out 100 homes (including the coaches, Ed Thomas, and 10 business, and of course the school.

A day after the tornado, volunteers were on their hands and knees on the football field picking up glass and wood particles.

Devries, Meester, Kampman, and Weigmann all came back to help out.

In their fisrt game this season they took on Dike-New Hartford, which is a town about 15 miles away and it's always a huge rivalry, but this year it was a very emotional game for both teams. The town of New Hartford was completely under water for about a week and it ruined their school as well.

AP ended up winning the game like 36-18 or something like that.

9/16/089:25 PM

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