Fillies aid teacher in need

A group of Iola High tennis players took community service literally this week.
The Fillies tennis team tested their marksmanship with their serves as part of a fundraiser to benefit a high school coach in Indiana afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly referred to as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
Chad Smith, 38, is from from Brazil, Ind., the same hometown as IHS tennis coach Jenn Bycroft.
“I don’t personally know him, but I do know his sister, and my dad and my brother know him and his family,” Bycroft said Monday.
The Fillies players whole-heartedly agreed to the the project — “Serving Others With Our Serves” — to raise funds for the Smith family.
Players took pledges for each in-bounds serve they made out of 100 attempts.
Their marksmanship was spot on. Out of 900 tennis balls that were served Monday, 730 were inbounds, Bycroft said.
Coupling those pledges with other donations, the tennis team raised $942 as of Monday, Bycroft said.
“That is above and beyond what I thought we could do,” she said. “This completely excites me.”
All of the proceeds will be sent to Smith.
“I use the quote ‘serving others with our serves’ a lot with my team,” Bycroft said. “In tennis and in life, the one who serves best often wins. I think it’s important that as a coach, I teach the girls how to serve others with their lives and to have joy doing it.
“I was really proud of  my team today,” she continued. “They were very excited about this, and loved that they were helping someone.”
The final collections tally may rise even further. One of the 13 players was ill Monday and could not participate — yet.

CHAD SMITH was a teacher and coach at Clay Community Schools since 2007 before resigning after his ALS diagnosis earlier this year.
Through ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease (named after the disease’s most famous victim), motor neurons reaching from the spinal cord to muscles throughout the body will continue to degenerate, causing the muscle tissue to weaken.
Sufferers eventually lose the ability to walk, speak, taste, smell and eventually breathe, depending on how quickly the disease spreads.
There is no known cure.
“When I heard the news it broke my heart,” Jan Choate, a friend and former colleague of Smith’s told the Brazil Times. “How often can you leave the doctor’s office wishing he had told you that you had cancer instead of this?”