It was amazing like seeing a bear swimming in a swimming pool in the backyard.
Travis Russell, the 40 -year -old Jesuit priest, was head of Verbum Dei High, carrying the craft tool box as if he was the school man. Take a hammer to prove that he knows what he is doing.
Finally, the head of Dei Father, Father Travis Russell, prepared a picture of the new fourteenth Pope Liu.
(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)
He said, “I had to suspend a picture of the new Pope.”
Everything on the deck in the “verb”, a beacon of hope for many in South Los Angeles. By registering 310 students, the All-Boys Catholic School at WhatsApp is only 4000 dollars, as most families pay $ 1,200 thanks to the assistance from the corporate work study program and other Catholic scholarship funds.
Once a basketball force in the 1970s with the likes of Raymond Lewis, David Greenwood and Roy Hamilton, the school canceled the football season after four games in 2024 due to the lack of players. It was a decision taken by Russell, who believed his school needed to start again.
He rented as a main coach Gary Parks, who was an assistant to the 2005 Verbum Dei football team and is a Verbum Dei graduate. Russell, another graduate of Ferum de Darius Spaaples, rented to be a sports manager. The gardens rented five assistants of Dei Verbum graduates. Everyone decided to return to football slowly, so the team will not play its first match this season until October 19 against Palmont, then hosts its first match at home in more than 20 years in a new stadium against Locke in the following week.
The school is subject to a $ 30 million reconstruction project.
“The mission is to rebuild Verbum Dei’s legacy and traditions,” Parks, the Baptist priest who spent four years as a main coach in Maya Angelo Hi, said until he was called to work in the act.
Russell explained that although some Catholic schools that use a strategy to quickly repair sports programs by switching to transportation and promises of financial breaks and other privileges, he does not want anything.
“When you build a community instead of just a school, it follows loyalty and success in the long run,” Russell said.
Gardens want to build with each student semester.
He said: “This is what we did in Angelo.” “We want you to come because Verbum Dei is a great educational institution. Football is a secondary product.”
All students participate in a work study program for companies that require them once a week to obtain real experience in work. Some have to appear wearing a suit and tie. They balance work and sports participation and school at 15, 16, 17 and 17 years, which prepares them for college and adulthood.
“It is definitely better,” said Geovanny Gutierrez, which has an area of 250 pounds. “Last year there was no motive to play.”
They were using the artificial grass field that was built by rams in the nearby Nikrson gardens while waiting for their new field to be completed next month. Otherwise, they work in their weight room or asphalt next to the school parking.
“We will make her work,” Parks said. “For this reason we do not mind training on Blacktop. We know what we can be.”
The program now contains 26 players, including 12 beginners men. This is to build step -by -step programs, focusing on academics during the day, study halls, then sport in the afternoon.
Adrian Alvarado was on the team last year, but he did not come out almost this year after the sudden season was stopped.
He said: “I was disappointed.” “I love the idea that we started slowly. We were able to use more students. I just want to get a game.”
It is a refreshing and inspiring scene to see management staff and training on the same page using sport to teach life lessons while not looking for shortcuts in order to win first.
Russell never created a challenge, and the football program restored the saying that he might make a call to the Vatican with a message to Pope Liu XIV, a sports fan.
He said, “I will invite him to a game here.”
Welcome to the new Verbum Dei, full of hope, full of dreams, full of respect for their families and society.