KERENS —
A phone call, a small gesture. Russell Anderson had broke the news to his friends in August he had cancer, and a pal had something for him.
Scott Doring, Blooming Grove’s second-year coach, worked with Anderson in Corsicana, and his Lions would be playing Anderson’s Kerens Bobcats later that October night.
A small effort in Blooming Grove had netted a few bucks to help Anderson to defray the costs of what would be 15 straight weeks of treatment.
“Scott thought it was a couple hundred dollars,” said Anderson, who is cancer free and who will have his next evaluation in March. “I was fairly shocked.”
The folks in Lionsville, elementary kids with their change, high school students with their tip money, pitched in to the tune of more than $1,100.
A week later, before Blooming Grove’s game against Mildred, Anderson told Mildred coach Patrick Harvell he was on his way to Blooming Grove to speak at the Lions’ pep rally. That’s when the wheels in Mildred started turning, and folks there raised another $2,500, and presented it to Anderson before Kerens’ visit to Asby Field a week after that.
If that wasn’t enough, the community in Kerens raised $4,500, money that came in handy for a family of four facing a gargantuan challenge.
“It’s hard to describe how thankful you are,” Anderson said.
In Kerens, Anderson said a group of people, coaches Steve Almeute and Jayson Engel, and booster club members Ross Washington and Leslie Leerskov headed efforts.
In Mildred, Harvell took the cue from Blooming Grove.
“We just threw something together, and did it within a week,” Harvell said. “We have some people in our district that know Russell, or went to school with Russell. A lot of organizations in Mildred got involved, pee wee and the youth sports donated money.”
The goal was $500, Harvell said, but they raised that the first day.
“It spread like wildfire, not only through our student body, but the entire community,” he said.
That Friday night in Mildred, Anderson had no idea it was coming.
“I was giving my, ‘rah, rah, let’s go out and get after their tails’ speech,” Anderson said. “Steve pokes me, and said, ‘You gotta go out to the middle of the field.’”
It was a chilly night that warmed quickly. Anderson was clearly humbled, and the people in the stands clearly moved.
It was his second time through it.
Back in August, Anderson phoned his friends to tell them the news. A mysterious knot on his neck was cancerous, the results of years of dipping and chewing tobacco, he said.
He didn’t expect to coach at all, scheduled to leave for M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston before the last preseason game.
But, he ended up missing only one game, and that because he had his wisdom teeth removed. He missed five practices.
Nine weeks of chemo, six weeks of radiation over a 15-week period, and any pick-me-up is welcome.
Doring approached Brooke Richards about doing something before the Lions’ Oct. 9 meeting with Kerens. Richards, an Algebra teacher and cheerleading sponsor, is the girlfriend of assistant coach Matt Anderson – no relation, but a former staff member in Corsicana with Russell. And she knew Russell, too.
“We’re all close to the situation,” Doring said.
So the collecting began.
“One thing that surprised me, and was really nice, was that we had a couple of kids that just went over and above and brought a lot of money,” Doring said. “We had one kid, a waiter, who gave two or three nights of tips, well over $100. He didn’t even know Russell.”
While he said the words to describe his emotions are hard to muster, Anderson found his way to Blooming Grove, and to Mildred, to pep rallies where kids he knew, and many he didn’t, gave their pennies and dollar bills so that his 15 weeks of treatment and hotel stays and meals on the road were a little less complicated.
“I just wanted to tell them thank you for the gesture,” Anderson said. “They didn’t have to do it.
“It wasn’t the amount of money, it was more the thought and caring behind it that meant more to my family.”
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E-mail Raymond Linex II: rlinex@corsicanadailysun.com
"Soundoff" on this story: soundoff@corsicanadailysun.com
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