PA Highschool Football Team Shoveled Driveways After Storm

A western Pennsylvania high school football team is receiving praise after their good deed. The students already had Monday off from school because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day but practice was canceled because of a winter storm the day before. Their coach canceled a weightlifting session and told them to shovel driveways for those in need instead.

Coach Brian DeLallo at Bethel Park High School took to Twitter to announce that Monday’s weightlifting session in the gymnasium was canceled. “Due to the expected severe weather, Monday’s weightlifting workout has been canceled. Find an elderly or disabled neighbor and shovel their driveway… that’s our Monday workout” he tweeted. He also told the boys not to accept any money.

By mid-morning more than 27 of the athletes were texting photos to the coach, with some saying they were on their 6th driveway. District officials said 40 players, including some eighth graders, shoveled out more than 100 homes throughout the municipality. They even went back out Tuesday afternoon to clear off some more sidewalks.

Coach DeLallo said he couldn’t take all the credit for getting the players outside the gym and into the snow. He credited a coach who was there 25 years before him as the originator of the idea. “Helping out snowed-in neighbors has been a tradition for decades for Bethel High School’s football team. “The tweet received a lot of attention, but honestly, this is nothing new. Former coach Jeff Metheny started it and I am just carrying on that legacy. Also, many other area schools also do things just like this all the time,” DeLallo said.

One of the homeowners, Robert Klein commended the students for their efforts. “I have lived in Bethel Park for more than 40 years now. And acts of kindness like this are exactly why I have stayed for as long as I have, and why I will never leave. These young men have no idea how much something like this means to me and it makes me so proud to live here,” Klein said