Want ideas to teach your high school students some solid values? A coach in Pennsylvania may be the one to follow. This high school football coach cancelled practice and instead had his players shovel the driveways of elderly neighbors in the area.
A Community is Wowed by How the High School Football Coach Cancelled Practice to Help the Elderly
Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, part of the Pittsburgh metro area, is home to football coach and teacher, Brian DeLallo. But this coach apparently isn’t just about winning the game, he’s also about developing good humans.
How do we know that? The main reason is that last year, the high school football coach cancelled the team’s weightlifting practice so the kids could help the elderly neighbors in the area.
After a snowstorm had rolled through the area, the coach Tweeted a message to his students, “Due to expected severe weather, Monday’s weightlifting workout has been canceled. Find an elderly or disabled neighbor and shovel their driveway. Don’t accept any money. That’s our Monday workout.”
Normally, the kids would be meeting at 9am for weightlifting practice, but their coach had a different idea for them. And the fact that the high school football coach cancelled to have his students do this went viral. A local news network, WPXI, picked up the story, tweeting a video of some of the students in action:
😭I teared up doing this story!
The Bethel Park football coach told his players they weren’t doing a gym work out today — and instead instructed them to go shovel driveways for elderly neighbors.
These guys took it seriously & are on their 6th driveway 👏🏼 @WPXI pic.twitter.com/wsZipK2kpu
— Gabriella DeLuca (@GabriellaDeLuca) January 17, 2022
Gabriella DeLuca, the person who Tweeted the story above said, “These guys took it seriously and are on their sixth driveway.”
When asked about why the high school football coach cancelled practice for this reason, DeLallo said, “It’s about community. We talk about in our program all the time, so this is another chance we have to go out and interact with our community in a positive way and show them that they’re important to us.”
DeLallo didn’t want to take credit for the idea, however. He told reporters that the head coach of Bethel Park High School for 25 years, Jeff Metheny, had originally thought of this idea, saying “We are simply carrying on one of the many great traditions he established.”
Wondering what the students thought of this idea? Click on.