From Staff Reports
Andrew Procell has proven that a little hope and the right friends can net you just about anything. And, in the process, maybe even make you the stuff of legends.
The Corsicana High School girls soccer coach entered a contest with Kwik Goals before the Texas Association of Soccer Coaches (TASCO) fall convention in November. The prizes included a set of cones, practice goals, and a pair of game-ready goals, on wheels for easy movement. Procell shot high, and had to write a narrative on why he thought the school district needed the goals.
Before the convention, Procell received an email saying he had won the big prize.
“It blew my mind,” Procell said.
The goals are valued at more than $4,500. Each.
“It’s an opportunity for enrichment for the school district,” Corsicana Independent School District Executive Director of Athletics Clint Roddy said. “Anytime we get something of value from an outside source, it allows us to use resources on other things.”
The win was just the start of the fun. Procell had to figure out how he was going to get the goals back from the convention, which was held in Galveston.
Part of the entry process asks coaches if they have the means to pick up the goals from the convention, said Procell, who admitted he had never pulled a trailer before. So he pondered how he would get them home.
“Only thing I could think is, ‘Hey, why don’t I just take a school bus?,’” he said.
And that is precisely what he did.
Procell called his old buddy from Pine Tree, two-time state high school champion powerlifter Eddie Calico, for help. Calico knows about soccer, right?
“No,” Procell deadpanned.
But, he is strong and mechanically inclined.
“I couldn’t have done it without him,” Procell said. “We broke it down, put it in the school bus, and took it all the way back home to Corsicana.”
Once home, Procell, Calico, Coach Stephen Watson, and several of the girls’ players assembled them. That’s after driving the bus home from Galveston in steady rain.
Ah, the bus.
Attendees at the TASCO convention were a bit miffed. They asked Procell where his students were. Taking a nap, maybe?
“I told them, ‘No, I just won the goals so I had to take them back,’” Procell laughed. “It’s sort of like a little legend thing now. They all talk about it,
“It has even been talked about on podcasts.”
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