Evacuee football players find a new team

NY Times:

When Jyrell Gaddies, a 16-year-old defensive back, enrolled at Eisenhower Senior High School here this week, he asked the football coach, Daryl Phipps, how many fans the home stadium could hold.

"Twelve," Phipps said.

"Twelve hundred?" Gaddies said, the awe evident in his voice.

"No," Phipps responded. "Twelve thousand."

With that, Gaddies and his twin brother, Tyrell, were officially welcomed to Texas high school football.

Two weeks after the Gaddies twins helped John F. Kennedy Senior High School in New Orleans win their opening game, they stood in the Eisenhower weight room between third and fourth period on Friday, wearing their new black-and-gold jerseys for the first time. They checked themselves out in the mirror and nodded their approval. "We're the Eagles now," said Tyrell, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound tight end. "We used to be the Cougars. We've gone from the land to the air."

More precisely, they have gone from the Seventh Ward in New Orleans to a suburb north of Houston that has produced such National Football League standouts as Dante Hall and Aaron Glenn. Whether the Gaddies twins alter the competitive balance of football in the Aldine School District remains to be seen. For now, they are satisfied just to have lockers for the first time in their lives. "It feels like we're in college," Tyrell said.

Back in New Orleans, the twins were starting a high-school booster club to buy an ice machine and mats for the football team. At Eisenhower, they have free athletic tape, cleats without holes, and coats and ties for game days. "All of this happened to us for a reason," said Jyrell, who, at 6-foot-1 and 168 pounds, is considerably smaller than his brother.

...

The twins used to talk about winning the Louisiana state championship. Now they talk about winning the Texas state championship. They used to dream about playing for the L.S.U. Tigers. Now they dream about playing for the Texas Longhorns.

"I'm just dying to go to college in Texas," Jyrell said. "In this state, football is crazy. The dudes are big. Whew, are they big."


Hook 'um.

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