Steve Francis Lends A Hand - Maryland Terrapins
1/1/1970 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Sept. 27, 2001
COLLEGE PARK, Md. - In 1999, University of Maryland students slept in sleeping bags around the floors of Cole Field House in order to get tickets to watch Steve Francis and his Terrapin teammates play college basketball.
Two years later, many of those same students are temporarily without a home following the Sept. 24 tornado that swept through the Maryland campus, but Francis is on hand to lend a helping hand.
Francis, a college All-American in 1999 and the NBA Co-Rookie of the Year in 2000, was on campus last Monday afternoon at the time the tornado ripped the College Park campus. He was on the floor at Cole Field House playing pick-up basketball with several members of the current Maryland basketball team when at 5:20 p.m., the twister roared past Cole and through the northwest quadrant of the campus.
On Thursday, the Houston Rockets point guard did his part to aid in local relief efforts by offering a free meal to the approximately 700 students who reside in the University Courtyard apartments, which have been rendered as unsafe after the disaster. Residents of the Courtyards, essentially homeless for the last three days, are living in hotels, on cots at the Campus Recreation Center, with family, or on floors or couches belonging to other friends and students.
Most of the students, juniors and seniors, were Maryland students while Francis led the Terps as high as a No. 2 ranking in 1998-99.
About 110 students got word of Francis' dinner and were in attendance at the UM Golf Course banquet facility on Thursday evening. They were treated to a full-course meal with barbeque chicken as the entr?e, and ice cream sundaes for dessert. Francis, who joined the group for dinner, said in a few remarks that he remembered people supporting him while he was a Maryland student and it was a small way that he could give back to those who helped him.
Francis, who reports to the Rockets' preseason training camp next week, grew up in nearby Silver Spring, Md. He joked that if a tornado had struck while he had been a student, "I don't know if I'd have come back for a month."
Many of the Courtyard residents may, in fact, be without housing for one month. Among the displaced students are five men's basketball players: Earl Badu, Lonny Baxter, Steve Blake, Juan Dixon and Drew Nicholas. Baxter and Blake were among the group to attend the Francis dinner.
Anyone wishing to make contributions to the Maryland tornado relief fund should write a check to the "University of Maryland College Park Foundation" and indicate Tornado Victims Fund on the memo line. Contributions should be mailed to: University of Maryland College Park Foundation, c/o Terry Miller, Room 2103 Pocomoke Building, College Park, MD 20742.
