Girls’ team gets workout after snow closes school

    When a heavy snowstorm like last week’s cancels classes at Chase County Schools, it also means no practice for its sports teams.
    But Girls’ Basketball Coach Alex McNair found a way for  his team to get a workout anyway Jan 18.
    That was the first day of back-to-back school cancellations last week after 9 inches of snow hit Imperial and the surrounding area.
    McNair said he’s noticed single folks, some elderly residents and others scooping snow themselves as January has seen one snowstorm after another. That gave him an idea.
    In lieu of practice in the CCS gym last Wednesday, he gathered his team and some of their managers to provide a service project to the community—shoveling snow.
    In four and a half hours time, the group cleared snow from driveways and/or sidewalks at about 30 homes, he said.
    He had an idea on some residents to start with, he said, and it progressed from there. They scooped Softball Coach Karli Hale’s walk, then she joined them for the rest of the day, McNair said.
    “Once it got out on social media, we started to get requests or suggestions for snow removal from others,” he said.
    They went up and down Broadway and also hit some other homes off main street, he noted.
    Some of the people benefitting from the volunteers wouldn’t accept “no” when they offered some cash, he said, so that was used for the girls’ lunch in between the shoveling.
    Video was sent in to one of the area TV stations, and the segment was also seen on TV stations in Omaha.
    McNair said it was a great team-building project for the girls.
    “Once we got going it was a lot of fun. Some of the girls were throwing snowballs and each other into the snow,” he smiled.
    McNair said some of the homeowners had tears in their eyes as the girls scooped their snow.
    “That was all worth it,” he said.