Rock Hill’s Legion Collegiate gives soccer equipment, support to school hit by tornado

It didn’t take long for the players to load Jesus Martinez’s red Toyota Camry — but the act will go a long way.

Legion Collegiate Academy donated 30 soccer balls, two portable goals and two bags of sports pinnies to the North Central High School soccer program Saturday afternoon, about a week after an EF-2 tornado damaged the Kershaw County school’s classroom and athletic facilities and altered extracurricular schedules.

Martinez, the head soccer coach at North Central, said athletic director Tyronne Drakeford was able to go into the school and salvage some basketball and wrestling uniforms after the tornado hit.

“But as far as baseball teams, softball teams, it’s kind of like, ‘Let’s try to get as much as we can because we don’t know what is there we’ll be able to reuse,’” Martinez told The Herald.

He said he was grateful for Legion Collegiate’s support.

“(It’s about) just having something to share with the kids and letting them know that even though the school is not there, we still got soccer,” Martinez said. “We still got soccer, and we can use that to keep them encouraged and keep them going.”

Legion Collegiate soccer coach Alex Martinez — the two aren’t related — reached out to Jesus Martinez after he learned about the disaster from one of his players’ parents, he said.

“We got talking, and he said he needed some stuff — balls, cones, pinnies and stuff that he lost due to the tornado,” Martinez said. “And so I contacted my team and a lot of the parents. Some of them donated some money to buy equipment, some people donated equipment…

“I’m very proud of our families and the school and how they stepped up to be able to help.”

Legion Collegiate soccer players Samuel Bush, Charles Carter, Jackson Turner and Caitlyn McCutchan were at Manchester Meadows and helped load Jesus Martinez’s car on Saturday.

“You look out for your fellow athletes and you help out when they need it,” Turner said.

Legion Collegiate, a public charter school that’s in its inaugural year, will play the Knights in soccer in the spring.

North Central High School has relocated to a temporary campus in Camden. For more information about financial donations or the immediate needs of specific academic departments, visit the school’s website at kcdschools.net/Page/35.

This story was originally published January 19, 2020 at 11:12 AM.

Alex Zietlow

The Herald

Alex Zietlow writes about sports and the ways in which they intersect with life in York, Chester and Lancaster counties for The Herald, where he has been an editor and reporter since August 2019. Zietlow has won nine S.C. Press Association awards in his career, including First Place finishes in Feature Writing, Sports Enterprise Writing and Education Beat Reporting. He also received two Top-10 awards in the 2021 APSE writing contest and was nominated for the 2022 U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Rising Star award for his coverage of the Winthrop men’s basketball team.