Football: Communities rally around coach, player after separate tragedies

Richard Hibbitts estimates that there were more than 100 people on his front lawn on the evening of August 30, hours after his wife, Cindy, had died.

Cody Black is positive that every one of his teammates consoled him after his father, Dennis, died on Sept. 3.

And the Marfa and Crane communities made sure that Richard, an assistant coach on the Shorthorns football team, and Black, a junior running back and safety for the Golden Cranes, had support.

All the prayers and hugs and phone calls in the world could not bring Dennis and Cindy back.

But in a week of tragedy for the two teams, the outpouring of love from the towns sent Richard and Cody a message: "We have your back."

At Marfa, it began Aug. 29, five minutes before its season opener, when head coach Steven Urban's cell phone vibrated, and it was his sister, who rarely calls. She said their father, Tom, had a heart attack.

The next day, the Marfa coaches had just finished their work when they learned that something was wrong with Cindy. Two coaches went home with Richard, while Urban bought a plane ticket for Alexandria, La., to visit his dad.

When Urban found out about Cindy's death, he called the superintendent and principal and went to Richard's house.

Soon, Richard and his three children would have the shoulders of the Marfa community to cry on if they needed it.

"Everyone says the same thing. ‘If there's something I can do, let me know,' " Richard said.

Cindy was a teacher with the Marfa Independent School District for 24 years, and the news of her loss rippled through the community.

The school's volleyball teams forfeited their matches and went home.

The football team, most of the players taught by Cindy, wore ‘CH' stickers on their helmets during Friday's game in her memory and beat Tornillo 42-6.

Richard was at the burial the day before and could not attend the game.

Urban barely made to game after arriving at 2 a.m. from Louisiana. His father was "stable and improved," and he was wait-ing for a date to have triple-bypass surgery.

The head coach returned to a team that was playing for Cindy and Tom plus the school groundskeeper's wife, who recently died, and the school counselor's husband, who had heart problems last week, too.

Assistant coach Alonzo Samaniego led practices last week.

"When we got to practice on Monday, the kids were pretty down," he said. "It's not that they weren't trying. Everything hit at once, and it's tough for a teenager to handle that. We used the stuff that happened for motivation."

Urban acknowledged the week's events in his pregame speech Friday.

"I told them, ‘We've had a rough week as a town and as a community. But nothing pulls a town together more than a football game and a winning team,' " Urban said.

Crane beat Greenwood 27-21 on Friday to end a two-year drought against the Rangers.

Cody had a 34-yard touchdown reception that he capped with an emotional end-zone celebration as he thought about his dad.

The Crane community rallied behind Black, who was surprised that so many people cared about his family's well-being.

The community's support was partly why he wanted to play Friday. He also wanted to show his teammates that he still would be the same player.

Either way, Crane would have had his back.

Just like Marfa will take care of its neighbors.

"We don't pay that much and housing prices have escalated, so it's hard to get coaches and teachers here," Richard said. "The only thing I can tell them is we have the best people in this area."