Correction: Voting ends Thursday, Nov. 15, at midnight. KUT News has since corrected this post.
Reagan High School’s football team is in the running for a $25,000 grant.
The Reagan Raiders are currently bringing up third place in Sports Illustrated’s “Underdogs” competition. An online video series highlighting struggling high school football teams that push on despite the odds, Reagan’s installment in the “Underdogs” series – “The Long Road Back” – documents the school’s attempt to rebuild.
The Raiders took home state championships in 1967, 1968 and 1970. But recent years haven’t been as kind to the team, which went 0-10 in 2011. “The Long Road Back” follows new coach Keith Carey and his team as they attempt to rebuild.
“There’s a group of kids over here, and there’s a school and a community that had a football team that they couldn’t really look to for that source of pride,” says Carey, who joined Reagan in February of this year. “So I thought it was a great opportunity to come over and do something that was really meaningful, for a group of people who are frankly just a wonderful group of people.”
Carey led Reagan to a 2-7 season this year. “We won two, which was two more than last year,” he says. “Our goal was to win one – and we doubled that – so we’re headed back in the right direction.”
“Underdogs” viewers can vote for any one of the 10 teams profiled in the series; the team with the most votes wins a $25,000 grant. Carey says the prize “would be huge,” adding that it wouldn’t go solely to Reagan’s football program, but toward underwriting all of Reagan’s sports programs.
“We’ve been in third place for a long time in the voting,” Carey says. “Texas is a big state. I think if we rally … we have a chance to pull off a big win here. It would be huge for Reagan and East Austin, and it would, I think, just be an awesome win for all of Texas football.”
Voting ends Thursday, Nov. 15, at midnight.
Here’s Reagan’s installment in the “Underdogs” series, “The Long Road Back.”
