Trojan athletes give back to the community

Troy University student-athletes have been recognized for their volunteer work this past month.

According to the Sun Belt league office, the University was awarded the Conference’s Community Service Initiative for the month of January. The Initiative is a monthly competition, giving “victories” to teams that complete community service in the form of points.

The team that accumulates the most victories wins the competition for the month.

Troy beat the rest of the conference by a large margin. The Trojans had 5,625.5 points, and the next team, UT Arlington, had only 3,599.

No other team had more than 400 points—Georgia Southern had 382, Little Rock had 370 and UL Lafayette rounded out the top five with 185.

Conference rival South Alabama had only 128 points, and Georgia State had 13.

Four Sun Belt teams earned zero points: Appalachian State, Arkansas State, UL Monroe and Texas State.

Student-athletes represented several sports in various projects for the competition this past month.

Members of the Troy softball team raised $4,000 by participating in a daylong benefit camp, along with coaches from other schools. The money went to a local high school student who had been recently diagnosed with cancer.

Softball players also worked on a house with Habitat for Humanity on Jan. 31.

According to Leah Brundidge, eight to 10 players worked on the outside of the house.

“It was a really cool experience, though, because we all struggled at the beginning with the various tasks,” Brundidge, a senior outfielder from Brewton, said.

“Just seeing everyone’s determination and persistence to make sure we did an excellent job was a great team-building activity. Also, just knowing that we were of some assistance to a well-deserving family in the community was pretty awesome as well.”

Some football players worked at an “open gym,” playing sports with local elementary school children and joining in other activities as well.

Track and field athletes raised $1,550 for the local March of Dimes and the Alzheimer’s Association.

UT Arlington won the last two months’ competitions, and UL Lafayette won in October. Little Rock won the first initiative award last September.