New Orlean's Carver High School and its football field were both destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. Now, the school's athletic director and coach are working to bring back school spirit with the establishment of a new $2 million stadium, funded by donations.
At Carver High School in New Orleans, more than 500 students are still attending classes in FEMA trailers. The school was wrecked by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. So was the athletic field, where the school’s football team, the Carver Rams, used to play. The team was once considered one of the city’s greatest, but last year, they didn’t win a single game all season.
“If you kick a field goal on one side of our football field—the ball goes into the gym, which was condemned after the storm,” the school’s new athletic director, 23-year-old Brian Bordainick, told CNN. “And, if you kick a field goal on the other side, it goes into a house which was knocked off its foundation from Katrina.”
Bordainick and Carver’s football coach, Shyrone Carey, believed that if they could bring back the school’s athletic spirit, they would be able to inspire Carver’s students and the entire New Orleans community. “If we give kids some constructive things to be involved in—guide them and give them discipline, we can help them achieve their dreams,” said Charles Webb, a former Carver quarterback.
So Bordainick, Carey, and a board that included alumni like Webb set out an ambitious goal: they would apply for a grant from the National Football League to win $200,000 to help build a new stadium. But just as they were about to send in their proposal for the “9th Ward Field of Dreams” project, they received some bad news: the architecture firm that had agreed to provide them with a design proposal wouldn’t be able to complete the task. Just days before the deadline, they were left without a crucial part of the application.
Fortunately, just in the nick of time, a friend of Bordainick’s managed to corner one of New Orleans’ leading architects, Steve Dumez of Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, at a party. Dumez agreed to talk to Bordainick, but warned him it had better be quick: “You’ve got 30 seconds to give your best elevator schpiel you’ve ever given,” he said.
But incredibly, Dumez and his firm got on board with the plan, despite the 24-hour turnaround time for the design proposal. “How could you not get sucked into such an amazing story?” asked one of Dumez’s partners, Mark Ripple. Thanks to the architects’ last-minute help, Carver High was selected for the grant. They’ve also received $100,000 in sponsorship fees from Nike, and over $1.5 million from other companies and individuals. After the stadium is complete, the organizers believe that the project will revitalize the school and the community.
“This school—and these children overcoming the odds stacked against them—can be a real catalyst for rebirth in this city,” Bordainick said. “I think it can be something that people can look to, and something that people can rally behind.”