Meet the people ‘moving mountains’ to keep high school football in Shawnee after tornado

SHAWNEE — Emma Galloway marched on the grass field as the deep, brassy notes from her shiny tuba mingled with the melodies around her.

Facing a sizable home crowd, Shawnee High School’s band performed its upbeat halftime show before the Wolves’ football team burst onto the field again. As the sun slipped below the horizon and a full moon gleamed in the sky, the vibrant sights and sounds created a classic Friday night football scene.

But it wasn’t Friday.

And this football season has been far from typical.

Just ask Galloway’s mother, Ginny, a band booster who stayed on her feet selling refreshments as Shawnee hosted Carl Albert in late September.

“It’s a community event to get these kids on the field every time,” said Ginny Galloway, the booster club’s head of concessions.

This is true for any year, but these efforts have multiplied since a tornado devastated the community on April 19. The storm, classified as an EF2 in the National Weather Service’s preliminary ratings, was part of a tornadic outbreak across Oklahoma that left three dead in nearby McClain County and inflicted damage on more than 2,000 homes in Pottawatomie and McClain counties, according to federal reports.

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The storm system ripped the aging wooden press box off Shawnee’s Jim Thorpe Stadium and destroyed the goalposts, rendering it unusable. The Wolves started the season lifting weights in a cramped middle school locker room because they lost their weight room. Marching hats scattered far from the damaged band building, and instruments had to undergo the costly process of ultrasonic cleaning.

But when Shawnee competes at home, the scars from the storm system are covered with the cozy blanket of a familiar game-day atmosphere. From Oklahoma Baptist University administrators to supportive parents, community members have banded together to provide Shawnee with the beloved comforts of high school football.

“Sometimes it just goes unnoticed,” said Shawnee superintendent Aaron Espolt. “A lot of people are moving mountains to ensure that our young student-athletes and our student body gets to participate as close to normal as could possibly be.”

Jason Madonna, Del City’s former offensive coordinator, was hired as Shawnee’s head coach only two weeks before the tornado hit. Taking over a program that endured a winless 2022 season, Madonna knew he was entering a metaphorical rebuilding year.

He didn’t realize the process would involve physical reconstruction, too.

“We got a saying that we’re literally starting from Ground Zero,” Madonna said. “We got to figure it out all brand new like it’s a brand-new program. We don’t try to use that as an excuse for our failures, but we just try to figure it out and keep going.”

The Wolves, who entered Thursday with a 2-5 record, have overcome adversity, breaking their 15-game losing streak with a win at Ardmore before shutting out John Marshall this month in front of a home crowd.

To start the process, they needed a usable stadium instead of just a practice field.

That’s where OBU stepped in.

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The ‘good neighbors’

Steve Fluke has deep roots in Shawnee.

The OBU associate athletic director attended elementary school there. He graduated from Shawnee High School. Later, the proud alumnus worked at Shawnee Public Schools for 12 years, coaching baseball and football and serving as the athletic director.

“I’ve lived in Edmond for about three years now,” Fluke said. “I still consider Shawnee my home.”

On April 19, as images of the tornado’s destruction spread across news outlets and social media, Fluke saw his hometown in disarray. The lingering effects disrupted many aspects of daily life in Shawnee. Former superintendent April Grace said the storms caused more than $20 million of damage for Shawnee Public Schools, so the district finished the 2022-23 school year online.

OBU also took a hit – fragments of Raley Chapel’s distinctive stained-glass windows dispersed across campus – but Fluke said the football stadium’s damages were “minor” compared to those at Shawnee High School.

With refurbishments that included new fencing and goalposts, OBU’s Crain Family Stadium was ready for college football on Saturdays.

The venue ended up serving an extra purpose.

When Shawnee athletic director Dax Leone reached out to Fluke this summer and expressed concern about the Wolves’ stadium needing more time for renovation, Fluke knew what to do.

“We want to be good neighbors,” Fluke said. “We want to be good partners. We know if we were in the same situation, they’d be the first ones to lend a helping hand to us, so we want to make sure we return that favor.”

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Leone credited Fluke and OBU athletic director Robert Davenport for their generous welcome of the Wolves’ football team.

Shawnee has five home games on its schedule, most recently featuring Thursday night’s district matchup against Piedmont. Leading up to each kickoff, there’s constant collaboration between OBU and Shawnee High School.

The Bison let Shawnee use their sideline tarps and electronics, including the video board.

The Wolves bring in pylons, chains and other game-day essentials, hauling their equipment a little over a mile north to the university’s field.

Because they have to board a bus, every “home” contest resembles a road game.

“It’s not as convenient as playing at home,” Madonna said, “but we’re just grateful that we have an opportunity to still play in town.”

This arrangement buys Shawnee’s school district more time to thoroughly renovate Jim Thorpe Stadium instead of rushing the rebuild. Espolt said the district is approaching the process with a “long-term vision” after receiving insurance funds in late July.

This unconventional season at OBU offers a bridge between the past and future, something Fluke was eager to provide.

“His love for Shawnee and his passion for Shawnee has really shined through this thing,” Leone said.

The same applies to many tireless behind-the-scenes contributors.

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The community organizers

Near the south end of OBU’s stadium, a group of Shawnee band parents briskly worked to unload packs of soda and Gatorade into ice buckets.

On a sticky September evening, the band boosters’ cold concession-stand offerings provided fans with relief from the heat. Nearby, on the edge of the track surrounding the field, Shawnee Quarterback Club parents stayed busy selling T-shirts, raising money for expenses such as team meals.

Creating a high school football atmosphere in a college venue involves much more than just loading a team on a bus. Every surrounding piece of the grand production has to make the trip, too.

“It’s been complicated, but we’ve been getting it done,” said Tina Coleman, a quarterback club mother.

Then she laughed.

“We’ve got big trucks and guys with big muscles that can get everything loaded up for us.”

Coleman puts in plenty of work, too. She said she has volunteered with the quarterback club since her son, Rahmel Slaughter, was in sixth grade.

Now, he’s a ninth-grader with some chances to suit up for varsity games, and the tornado has affected his freshman team, too. The young squad has been playing every game on the road, bouncing from El Reno to Guthrie without a home venue.

When Rahmel spends time with the varsity team, he finally has the chance to compete in his hometown.

This sense of community uplifts the players and many others. The high school football setting is like a massive sun with many planets orbiting it, from the marching band to the spirit squads to the student section that donned matching neon construction vests for a theme night during the Carl Albert game.

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For the band, football concessions serve as the primary fundraiser, so home games are its lifeblood. Ginny Galloway said the band requires an $89,000 budget, and the school sets aside $11,000. Fundraisers help cover a variety of costs, including travel, competition fees and food.

Since April, there have been extra expenses. Band director Christopher Hall said the band alone suffered about a quarter of a million dollars in damages. The Brackeen building, a former car dealership that housed the band’s equipment, was condemned after the tornado as fiberglass insulation collapsed through the roof.

A couple of blocks from the high school, a snare drum was discovered outside a Big Lots store.

“We spent all summer trying to piece things together,” Hall said.

Without its building, the band has been practicing at Jim Thorpe Stadium, unaffected by the lack of a press box and goalposts.

Throughout these necessary changes and challenges, reminders of hope have surfaced.

After the storm, the Galloways found Emma’s tuba safe in its case amid the wreckage. Other instruments were there, too.

Hope also arrives in the form of each football game.

When the Wolves compete and the band marches under the glow of stadium lights, it isn’t just an autumn tradition.

It’s an escape for a city of more than 31,000 that has been grappling with not only the school’s damages, but also the tornado’s destruction of homes and emotional toll on families.

This is why superintendent Espolt repeats the phrase “One Shawnee.”

“Our whole community is dealing with the personal effects of this,” Espolt said. “And then we look at our (team) getting to play and … the band and the cheer and the pom and everything, all of our young men and women still getting to kind of remove themselves from some of that hardship and getting to do what they love.”

Madonna has noticed his team’s elevated sense of gratitude because of this.

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The game-changers

Ryan High can finally lift weights with all of his teammates and have plenty of space.

It’s an ordinary part of a football routine that the junior linebacker is not taking for granted.

Through the summer and fall, Shawnee’s players had to take shifts, crowding into their impromptu weight room as if they were giants lumbering around a miniature house from a storybook.

The middle school locker room could not comfortably hold a high school team of 60-plus kids. It could barely house gym equipment, but the Wolves removed some lockers and wedged in a couple of weight racks to make it work.

“It was definitely chaotic,” High said.

After navigating those constraints, the Wolves received a gift in Week 4.

They could move into their new weight room, taking another step toward normalcy.

Piece by piece, typical elements of football season are returning. High, who has attended Shawnee since preschool, treasures the chance to simply keep playing in his navy-and-white Wolves uniform.

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“It means everything to me,” High said. “It means a lot. I put a lot into football, and so does everybody else that’s out here.

“We all love the sport just as equally, and we would hate for it to be taken away from us because of something that we can’t control. The coaches always tell us (to) focus on what we can control and take care of what we can control.”

As the Wolves strive to turn around their program in the aftermath of the storm, the school district continues to rebuild Jim Thorpe Stadium. Espolt said the target date for completion is late February or early March with a firm deadline of May 1 so the Wolves can host graduation on their field.

Sometimes, it’s obvious the Wolves aren’t in their usual home venue.

A green bison head is etched into the center of OBU’s field with no Wolves insignia built into the stadium.

But the band’s harmonies continue. Cheerleaders lead their usual chants and wave pom-poms on the sideline.

And even after a grueling loss to powerhouse Carl Albert, players gathered with their fans to sing the alma mater, showing they can recreate their home environment about a mile from their familiar field.

“It’s definitely tough,” High said. “We’re moving through murky water, but it is a lot better, in my opinion, than it ever could be.

“This is exactly how it needs to be in order to set up the kind of success that we want in Shawnee and that I want to look back at when I graduate and say, ‘Man, yeah, that’s my school. I’m from there.’”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Shawnee football adjusting to life without stadium after 2023 tornado