A Florida high school was at risk of not being able to fund a football season this year — until Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield stepped in and pushed them to win the state championship with a generous donation.
Space Coast High School in Cocoa went 1-8 last football season, playing with “unusable” equipment, Sports Illustrated reported.
The team might not have had a regular season this year, much less go to the championship tournament, had Mayfield not heard of their struggles and stepped in to help.
The quarterback and his wife, Emily, contributed $17,900 to the team, which went on to have a completely different season than last year.
After going 10-3 during the season, the Space Coast Vipers beat the Bell Bulldogs 21-14 at the Sunshine State Athletic Association (SSAA) Atlantic 1A Championship on November 15.
When asked about his impact on Wednesday, Mayfield said “I get chills just thinking about it.”
The quarterback explained how he felt about it:
It’s just a cool story. Like I said, I have an unbelievable platform to be able to give back and obviously they were in a predicament of probably not having a season, not just for varsity but for JV, they didn’t have enough equipment. So being able to give back and seeing that turnaround—all we did was give them some helmets, they did the rest, they turned it around. They believed in it and that’s what football is all about—it teaches you life lessons how to handle adversity, how to deal with it and push forward so congrats to them. It’s pretty special.