Hurricane Ian slowed but couldn't stop high school football's return to Lee County

They played five high school football games in Lee County on Friday evening and on the surface, everything appeared to be normal.

There were bands and cheerleaders and homemade signs. Athletic directors buzzed around tracks in golf carts, parent volunteers flipped burgers outside concession stands.

Yet a closer look revealed some unhealed scars. A missing goalpost at South Fort Myers High. A pockmarked scoreboard at Bishop Verot. Rows of empty bleachers at Lehigh Senior cordoned off by yellow tape.

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Just over two weeks since Hurricane Ian ripped through Southwest Florida, Friday's games marked another small step on the long road to recovery. It's no surprise that sports, which has long served as a balm for wounded communities, was again tapped for this role.

Lehigh and Charlotte, who were originally scheduled to play next Friday, moved their game up a full week, even though neither school had reopened and the Tarpons players just returned to practice Tuesday.

While a rumored appearance by Gov. Ron DeSantis didn't materialize, a handful of state and local dignitaries, including Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, showed up to laud both schools for their resiliency.

"This community was struck by a strong hurricane but the spirit of this community lives strong and this game tonight is a testament to that," Diaz said in a pregame address to the crowd. "We weren't going to allow our kids to miss out on their high school years ... Tonight, just by being on the field, we've overcome so much adversity."

Charlotte athletic director Tom Massolio knows firsthand how sports can heal a community. In 2004, Hurricane Charley decimated the county, destroying much of Charlotte High, including its football stadium. Students were forced to finish the school year at rival Port Charlotte, attending in the evening.

Yet less than two months following the storm, a massive community effort allowed games to be played again at Tarpon Stadium. The biggest came on Oct. 30, when a crowd of 7,000, including then Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, watched Charlotte take on Port Charlotte. Fans of the once fierce allies sported the same T-shirt: 'Divided by a River; United by a Storm.'

"That was a really hard time but it was special too," Massolio said. "Any time you deal with something of this magnitude, you want to try and get back to normalcy, especially for the kids."

Lehigh athletic director Ernesto Adamo said he was surprised when he learned the game was being fast-tracked and credited a school-wide effort to get the field and stadium ready for play in time.

"It was apparent that it was a quick changearound for everyone," he said. "But our boys, they were more than happy to get back on the field. Playing football, finishing out the season is what they wanted so I'm glad we could give that to them."

Players at both Gateway and Bishop Verot were similarly eager to return for Friday's game at Vikings Stadium.

"For them, (football is) what most of them show up to school for; it's a motivating factor," Gateway coach Cullen O'Brien said. "The hope is that now they value it a lot more because they realize there are things in life that can take football away from them that they can't control so it should give them a lot more resiliency to finish out the season."

Bishop Verot athletic director Greg Coleman said the student body has shown an outstanding commitment to aid the effort to return the campus to normal following Hurricane Ian.

“Two days after the hurricane, we had 200 students here helping out; they really love this school," he said. "So they don't want to sit at home, they want to be back to school, even though they may say they don't, they want to be back to school."

A little over a week ago, South Fort Myers High School was used as an emergency shelter and the football field was a landing pad for helicopters performing rescue operations. On Friday, it returned to its normal role with Fort Myers paying a visit.

“I remember one of the helicopters,” South Fort Myers Principal Ed Matthews said. “It might have been a Black Hawk, and he sort of just came in, and it was almost like he was going through where the uprights were and laying it down the center. I sort of had this visualization of football games on Friday nights. It was very surreal. It was something like out of a movie.”

Fort Myers head coach Sam Sirianni said that he has never found the right approach coming back from a devastating storm in more than two decades of coaching.

“I am totally aware that this is very insignificant compared to what’s going on,” he said. “However, for these kids to get out and be together and to give something positive to the community – I just haven’t mastered how to ebb and flow the week.”

He felt his players were a little “melancholy” to start the game when he wanted them to embrace the experience.

“It was more about I felt that they should be having more fun doing what they’re doing,” he said. “They should be out with a little more pep in their step … It’s a hard puzzle to solve. It’s a fine line between getting them ready and understanding that it is just a release from reality.”

At halftime, he reminded his squad why they were there and got a strong response from the team on their way to a shutout victory.

“I’m just happy they got back out,” Sirianni said. “I’m so proud of our Fort Myers community - we had a great crowd. And that’s one of the things I challenged our guys (about). I said, ‘Look up in those stands. So many people took a Friday night just to get out and see you, and I think we owe them a little bit more.’ And kids understood and they responded.”

The News-Press sports editor Ed Reed and sports reporter Dustin Levy contributed to this story.

Connect with Dan DeLuca: @News-PressDan (Twitter), ddeluca@gannett.com.

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This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Hurricane Ian can't stop high school football's return to Lee County