“Lauren and Director of Basketball Operations Meshu Negga were receiving hundreds of boxes a day and everything had to be sorted by item and size to be distributed. We received some 300,000 t-shirts and 45-50,000 pairs of shoes,”
Sampson said. “I was so proud of our players, too, who pitched in to help.”
Among the most satisfying moments for the veteran Houston head coach was seeing people in the city wearing a Central Pennsylvania lacrosse shirt or a University of Georgia cross-country shirt.
“Seeing that put a smile on my face because it was something that helped people after so much was lost,” said Sampson.
It didn’t take long for the television cameras to depart Houston to cover Hurricane Irma in Florida in the string of natural disasters that hit America in 2017.
It also didn’t take long for Sampson to reach out to help another coach.
“I called Johnny Dawkins at Central Florida to see if we could help. We still had stuff here that we could send,” Sampson said. “The only thing that matters is to help people who really need it.”