NORMAL, Ill. - A day after the 2012 football spring camp concluded with the White Team winning the Red-White Scrimmage, the Illinois State football team gave back to the Bloomington-Normal community and its four-legged friends on a rainy Sunday afternoon. A handful of football players and coaches volunteered their Sunday afternoon to help maintain the safety of the dogs at the Humane Society of Central Illinois.
The Redbirds were on site to dig deeper trenches in the dog kennels to allow the fences to go further into the ground to prevent the dogs from digging their way out of the pens.
Former Redbird Head Athletic Trainer Kathy Schniedwind and current President of the Board of Directors for the Humane Society of Central Illinois was pleased to have the support of the ISU football team.
"I was so excited that we could get the ISU football players to come out and help dig some trenches in our pens so the dogs can't dig out," Schniedwind said. "To give up a Sunday afternoon, after just going through spring practice and having the culminating spring game the day before, that meant the world to me. They were involved in two of my passions on Sunday. They were involved in Special Olympics over at Normal Community West and involved with helping out the Humane Society. I am very appreciative of that, as is the entire board of directors and staff here at the Humane Society. I send kudos to head coach Brock Spack, who loves animals as well, and his guys that come out to help us. They will never know how much that meant to us."
Coach Spack said the afternoon showers didn't affect the team, which was able to get a lot of work accomplished for the cause.
"We are used to the rain as football players," Spack said. "It started raining after two hours in, and we hung in there for another two hours. Kathy called us a year ago with this project, and I said we would love to help in the future. After, practice one day I asked the guys `How many of you love dogs?' and naturally, a lot of them raised their hands. So, I told them I had a job for them, digging trenches for fences at the Humane Society to stop the dogs from digging out. We had a nice turnout of volunteers who wanted to help, including myself and coach (Greg) McClain. We went out there and dug ditches and worked for four hours. Getting to be around the players in a different setting was a lot of fun, but it was a lot of work too. We also had half of the squad helping with the Special Olympics over at Normal West Sunday afternoon."
As mentioned by Schniedwind and Spack, only half of the players and coaches could be at the Humane Society because the other half of the team was out at Normal Community West High School volunteering with the Special Olympics' Spring Games.
"It was our community service day," Spack said. "We went out and did a lot of it. This is really the only time our guys have time to do stuff like this, and we had Sunday off. Now, the team will start getting ready for finals and wrap up the academic year, before going home for a little bit."
The football team will get back on the turf for fall camp, beginning August 4th.
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