Building Character by Rebuilding Lives

Instead of a bus ride to a ski trip, Wakefield School players are on their way to the airport, then to New Orleans to help with post-Katrina rebuilding. (Photos By By James M. Thresher -- The Washington Post)

"When they're gutting, they'll see things familiar that they have in their house -- maybe a book that they've read -- and realize this was a family that had a real life," Brown said. "They'll see how their life was just stopped in time. Food still sitting out. It's not like they were prepared or wanted to be out of that house."

Almost 80 percent of the Hollygrove homes were built in the 1940s or '50s, and 53.7 percent of the residents had lived there since 1989 or earlier. So these were homes, not just houses. Twenty-eight percent of the Hollygrove population live in poverty, according to the 2000 figures, more than twice the national average. And 10.4 percent have bachelor's degrees, less than half the national average.

The neighborhood, with almost 7,000 residents, is 94.7 percent black. Rap music fans might be interested to know that Lil Wayne grew up there.

There was initial reluctance to skip Ski Week. After all, Ski Week has been a tradition at Wakefield since the school opened in 1972. But the Owls decided to put teeth into the school's motto of "Seek the Challenge, Make a Difference, Lead an Extraordinary Life."

All the players and coaches are paying their own way -- about $500 a head -- and some families lost their deposits at the ski resort because of the change in plans.

"We talked about stepping up and not living in the gray part of life, and my kids said, 'I want to do something different and be a part of something,' " Wakefield Coach Scott Barron said.

Senior Kevin Tedeschi, a team captain along with Ozburn, has attended Wakefield since first grade and has participated in Ski Week about every year. "It's a good getaway," he said, "but this is, too. It is a sacrifice, but it's not that we're losing anything."

Freshman Eric Wilson survived a hurricane as a boy in the Virgin Islands. He was unsure if his experience would brace him for New Orleans or stir up sad memories of the destruction he witnessed in St. Thomas.

"I just saw it as time away from school" then, he said. "I was happy. But I was too young to understand the financial and emotional state that my parents and grandmother were in."

Few of the Owls have done the kind of unskilled labor they are doing in New Orleans. They had to sign waivers to absolve Trinity Christian Community of liability. "Some people might be a little scary to be around with a hammer," Ozburn joked.

Injury-prone senior Aaron Phipps, who has worked some construction, was given half-serious orders that he had to stick within three feet of Barron but 10 feet from everybody else.

The Owls also are squeezing in some basketball. Trinity has contacts at Tulane University, so the team is practicing there to prepare for a home game Saturday against rival Highland. They also plan to attend a New Orleans Hornets practice.

As the trip drew near, the quizzical stares about missing Ski Week had disappeared.

"I think everyone is a little jealous," sophomore Brenton Lewis said, amused at the irony. "They want to go, too."

Varsity Letter is a weekly column about high school sports in the Washington area. Check out the Varsity Letter blog weekdays at

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/varsityletter.