The Miami Dolphins are spending the week in California, displaced by Hurricane Irma, but that isn't keeping them from helping others.
Another group of football-playing folks have been displaced by the hurricane, stranded in Las Vegas after the storm with their situation away from home becoming more dire by the day. The Dolphins decided to use their available resources to make at least one team's situation better.
A number of Dolphins players have banded together to pay for the lodging and transportation costs for Central High School's (Miami, Florida) football team, which is stuck in Las Vegas after traveling there to face national power Bishop Gorman High School. The Rockets upset the Gaels and own a national top-25 ranking of their own, but after Irma, their plans to return home were canceled, according to Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald.
"I'm ecstatic because anytime you see an organization like the Dolphins think about and take care of a high school team like ourselves, that's amazing," said Central coach Roland Smith, via the Herald.
Thanks to a stay that was extended from a departure date of last Sunday to this Friday, Central's traveling party of 69 players, coaches and administrators had accrused costs that reached the multiple tens of thousands of dollars, per the Herald. Dolphins players heard of Central's quagmire through a variety of channels and gradually joined forces to coordinate their departure via staggered flights and arrival in Miami through a transportation service.
"We don't have big booster clubs like other schools have that can take care of things like this," Smith said. "But when you have an organization the kids look up to and they step forward, it's an awesome thing."
The Dolphins play the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday in Southern California.
Dolphins owner Stephen Ross also pledged $1 million to immediate and long-term rebuilding efforts in areas affected by Hurricane Irma, the team announced Wednesday.
