Rogers High School football players help neighbor move during last week’s extreme heat

Last week, Charlene Montgomery’s mother was facing a deadline to move items out of a storage unit. But the temperature was in the triple digits and her husband had to work.

So, she said she picked up the phone to see if she could get some help from the Rogers High School football team.

They were happy to help.

“Got a call that a widowed, elderly lady needed help moving stuff from her house. She wanted to know if the Rogers Football team could help. So, a few calls later, I had a crew,” Matt Miethe, offensive coordinator for the football team, wrote on Facebook.

Football players said the heat during the Monday move was intense, especially in the U-Haul and storage unit.

“We’re all like a family on the team, and we’d be down to help anybody, anytime, like they were our family,” said Gabe Skinner, a wide receiver and cornerback who helped out.

Miethe, a proud Rogers alumnus who has taught at the school for 20 years, said he and the new head coach, Mike Dewey, are putting a bigger emphasis on community service. The team will be volunteering, for instance, at the Hillyard Festival this summer.

“We’re getting back to serving the community and sharing what it means to be a servant and leader,” Miethe said.

Blake Vangelder, a player who also volunteered, said community service isn’t all that different than playing football. Both involve a group of people coming together as a team to complete a task.

“If I can make somebody else’s day easier, it’s the light of my day,” he said.

Sophia McFarland and Jonathan Brunt contributed to this report.