Bastrop rallies around football team

BASTROP, Texas (KXAN) - Twenty years coaching, and Gerald Perry's never been more ready to kick off a football season.

"It's a new season, which is always exciting, but there's just something special this year," Perry said.

Most people could spend a lifetime coaching and never have a season anything like what Perry's team experienced last year.

"You had the phone ringing, 'Are you OK?' People from out of state, family," Paul Whitmill said.

"You didn't know what kids were going to show up that day," Perry said. "It was a tough situation. Winning football games, it was tough to concentrate on that."

The Bears won just three games. But the week everyone needed a win most, they played their best.

"After we won the game, San Marcos, after a week after the fires, that really lifted everybody," Luke Griego said. "Lifted a burden. It ... put a smile on somebody's face."

The game of football can be quite a teacher, and last year taught the players for Bastrop a few lessons that they will not soon forget.

"It's amazing how a simple game that we play that doesn't make us money or nothing, it's just the town comes together just for a football game can put a smile on everybody's faces who lost everything," Whitmill said.

"I definitely learned that last year," Antwuan Davis said. "I didn't know that this town relied on football like that. So, I enjoy this."

A disaster can show how little a sport matters, but it also can be a reminder why all the sacrifices, off the field and on it, are worth it.

"This right here, this is really goig to show that hard work pays off," Luke Griego said. "This season."

"I'm very excited," Paul Whitmill said. "Ready to make a new name for Bastrop."