Adamsville raising funds for St. Jude

Adamsville isn’t just a high school with successful sports teams throughout its athletic department.

It’s also a small town where everybody knows everybody else, and they care when tragedy strikes.

One of those is cancer on different occasions.

“I don’t know a family anywhere that cancer hasn’t touched, in Adamsville or anywhere else,” said Adamsville head football coach Brandon Gray. “And when it touches a family in this community, everybody else is good about helping out with fundraisers and things like that.”

The football team is the way people in Adamsville have been fighting cancer in the month of September while the Cardinals have been battling other teams on Friday nights.

They’ve been a part of a program called Touchdowns Against Cancer, in which people commit to donate a certain amount of money to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The drive ends this week after it started on Sept. 15.

It’s done through the football stats web site MaxPreps.com.

Adamsville Touchdowns Against Cancer

The idea came to Gray from a member of his coaching staff.

“Harold Settlemires brought it to me back in the summer and asked me what I thought about it,” Gray said. “I was all for it – anything to help out with something like this.”

Gray didn’t say anything about talking to the Cardinals’ opposition about letting them score a lot of points for a good cause. Although the team needed eight touchdowns to beat McKenzie on Sept. 16.

The Cardinals travel to Jackson Christian this week. Even though the Eagles have one win so far, Gray said he expects touchdowns and raising money for St. Jude to be difficult this week.

“Coach [Todd] Roland does a good job with those kids at Jackson Christian in getting them ready to play and coaching during the game,” Gray said. “We saw them last week at Scotts Hill, and they’re better than their record would make people think.

“This will be a tough game for us. We’ll try to get a win and try to raise some money for a good cause.”

Adamsville has been a part of other fund-raising efforts like Pink Out nights for Breast Cancer Awareness. Their event in 2014 raised nearly $20,000 for research.

“I’m not sure how much this or our Pink Out night will do, but any money is good if it helps them get closer to finding a cure,” Gray said.

Brandon Shields, 425-9751