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After coronavirus diagnosis, Stephen F. Austin coach calls on Dad to ditch farm for football field
When SFA football coach Colby Carthel couldn't be on the sideline for his team's upcoming game, he turned to his father, Don, who left his tractor to return to the gridiron and lead the Lumberjacks to a win.
www.espn.com
On the morning of Oct. 14 -- yes, the same day that Alabama rocked the college football world by announcing that Saban had tested positive for COVID-19 -- the football offices of Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas, were sent into a similar tailspin. Colby Carthel, in his second season as head coach of the Lumberjacks, had tested positive two days earlier and now a rapid PCR test had backed up those results. He was already out of the building and now he knew he wouldn't be allowed back in for at least another week. That also meant he wouldn't be on the sideline for the upcoming home game against his alma mater, the Angelo State Rams.
So what did Colby Carthel do? He called home.
Dad was on his tractor. You see, it's cotton harvest season in the Texas panhandle, and Don Carthel is a cotton farmer. OK, he's actually a retired football coach who has gone back to his cotton farming roots. That's why Colby needed to talk to him. The Lumberjacks needed an interim head coach, and the son wanted to know if his father would like the job.
"I left it running and I told my wife, 'Go shut the tractor off, I'm headed to Nacogdoches!'" Don recalls, half-joking. "I got to town a little after midnight Wednesday night so that I could be at the 7 a.m. practice on Thursday morning."
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