Go Warriors!!

Here's an article about Billy's football team helping out the flood victims. The bolded Red parts are about Billy. Dykhuizen is Billy's best friend, Matt.

Calumet players help out without being asked

BY STEVE HANLON
shanlon@nwitimes.com
219.933.4198 | Friday, October 03, 2008 | No comments posted.

Homes, tears and lives were floating down the street in the aftermath of the destructive storms that hammered the Region a few weeks ago. Northern neighborhoods in Munster were under water. Families nervously looked to the sky to see if the sun was ever going to shine again.

Around noon on the post-storm Monday, seven Calumet football players arrived to move sandbags and help in any way they could. This compassionate outreach touched many who saw it.

The players -- Darcell Ballentine, Chuck Carter, Billy Doup, Matt Dykhuizen, George Ezell, Tyler Vanlul and Montrez Wade -- went there on their own. Coach Ivan Zimmer never called them or persuaded them to volunteer.

"Here we have kids who don't have much and they went into an affluent community because those people needed help," Zimmer said. "It almost made the old man cry. I was very happy, pleased and proud of my kids."

For seven hours the Warriors lifted sandbags and put them down, in different areas. Doup was at the staging area, where he said he lifted and moved about 8,000 bags of sand onto payloaders, which were taken to neighborhoods under duress. The bags weighed between 25 and 100 pounds each.

"It was a good workout," Doup joked. "Hey, those people needed help, so what else could we do?"

Zimmer, in his 25th year as a varsity coach, said he preaches "right and wrong" to his players every day. For example, one of his players came into the office to call home for a ride. He said, "Hey, pick me up." Zimmer pointed out that the proper exclamation was, "Please, could you come and pick me up. Thank you."

Being on time is paramount to the program. Zimmer's saying -- "If you're early you're on time. If you're on time then you're late and if you're late, you're fired" -- has been tested this year and he's backed it up. Five players missed the first half of the North Newton game because of tardiness.

"Kids have to know that they're held to a standard," he said.

Last Saturday the Warriors washed cars for a fundraiser for eight hours. This week, with the homecoming game against Whiting coming and the team set to ride on fire trucks in the parade, the players went to the Lake Ridge Fire Department and washed and waxed two trucks.

"It's sort of a higher calling," Zimmer said. "In today's world rules were made to be broken. Look at the music and movies and videos. But we're trying to teach kids that even if you don't get caught you've got to know that you did something wrong. Life is a lot simpler when you do the right things."

That's what drove the Warriors to Munster. Dykhuizen spent most of his day in waist-deep floodwater. Still, he picked up the bags and put them down.

"I just thought it was the right thing to do," Dykhuizen said. "Coach is always trying to teach character and I guess it's working. The people were very thankful. A lady named Karen gave us food and something to drink and was nice enough to give us hugs. That meant a lot."