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PrintBishop Kelley High School football players have big hearts
The players and coaches volunteer for a local support group.
On the field, the Bishop Kelley High School football team is all muscle, as evidenced by its 11-1 season.
But off the field, these players have shown that they’re really all heart.
Two years ago, head coach J.J. Tappana was looking for an organization with which his team could volunteer. He soon found the perfect fit in Mended Little Hearts, a support group for families of children with congenital heart defects (CHD). With two coaches on the team who’d had children born with CHD issues and players who’d also been touched by the disease, the group and its purpose hit close to home.
Tappana reached out to Susan Vanderpool, now co-coordinator of the Tulsa chapter and chairwoman for the national committee of Mended Little Hearts. Since joining forces, they have organized summer barbecues and pool parties, a fund-raising dinner — at which the players cooked, served and cleaned — and Awareness Night football games, during which players escorted CHD patients and their families onto the field at halftime.
“(The players) jump at the chance to work with the kids and the families,” Tappana says. “I don’t know if they understand yet how much it means to the little kids because the little kids just love these guys.”
Vanderpool, whose 4-year-old son was born with a heart defect, says Bishop Kelley’s support has been invaluable. With the help of donations from a football player’s parents, the Tulsa chapter of Mended Little Hearts has donated around 250 care packages to families, at a cost of $35 each to make.
Tappana says his players get something just as valuable from the experience — gratitude.
“The relationship that I seek and desire most is for my players to get some perspective on how fortunate they are just to be healthy,” he says.
And the team’s involvement in the CHD community is expanding. Jenny Birks, wife of assistant coach Brandon Birks, launched another group, Little Heart Heroes, which also partners with the team.
In the end, both sides are grateful for what the other has given.
“I want to thank J.J. Tappana and his young men for everything that they have done for us,” Vanderpool says. “He’s just a great guy and he has a wonderful group of young men on his team that we’re privileged to know.”
