The Gilmer High School and Murray County High School baseball teams, along with boosters from each school, meet on the field after a game at Gilmer on March 6. Gilmer presented Murray County with a $500 donation to go toward repairs to the team's baseball field, damaged in a tornado.

CHATSWORTH, Ga. — The worst of times often tend to bring out the best in people.

Murray County High School was the victim of an unfortunate act of nature when a tornado swept through town on March 1, damaging a good portion of the stadium surrounding the Indians’ baseball field. The storm tore apart fencing and other structures surrounding the field, but also pulled communities together. 

The response in the aftermath of the storm has been tremendous, not just from community members rallying to fix the field, not just from coaches and players pulling together to keep moving forward with the season, but also from neighboring communities, rivals on the field who offered whatever support they could off of it. 

Today was the first scheduled home game for the Indians since the storm hit, with Haralson County High School coming to town. While their field is still not ready, the Indians received a generous offer from their crosstown neighbor and rival.

“North Murray has given us their field to play (today’s) game,” a grateful Kim Alderdice, Murray County’s head coach, said. “Gilmer has offered us their field. Southeast has offered. Ringgold, who went through this I think much worse than us a few years ago, have offered their assistance. Everybody’s been great as far as offering ‘If you need some equipment, if you need a place to go, come on.’”

“It’s been great just hearing the support, everyone saying, ‘Whatever you need just let us know,’” added Murray County assistant coach Drew Smythe. “That’s really been welcoming. A small community like this, to have so much support, it means a lot to all the coaches, and our kids really appreciate it.”

North Murray High School head coach Preston Poag said there was never a question about doing whatever he could to help out.

“You think about, same county schools, we’re rivals when we play but we’re all from the same community,” Poag said. “It’s an unfortunate deal, in the meantime, we looked at the schedules, when we’re on the road and they have home games we have a place for them. We welcome them to come here.

“You think about it, that could happen to any of us. It could’ve just as easily been our field,” Poag said. “You want to help people out, help communities out, help their baseball programs out. It’s just a good sign of unity among the community.”

Alderdice, originally from Adairsville, is in his second year coaching Murray County. After winning two games last year, this year’s team has started 3-8. He said the events that happened in the aftermath of the storm showed him a lot about an area he’s still learning to be a part of. 

“It showed me a lot about the community,” he said. “When you first come here, nobody really likes the new coach right off the bat. That’s been hard for me, trying to get through that last year. Then getting this year, having a much better team, community wise, you wonder what’s going to happen within the region and things of that nature. North Murray’s our rival. But here they are, this is off-the-field stuff, going ‘Hey, use our place.’ They might be our rival on the field but we’re in the same school district. They said, ‘Hey, our field’s available if you need it.’ They’re even going to run concessions for us … having some people stay behind and do that, and let us work the gate. It’s been real uplifting to me to see that.” 

Another show of support came a few days after the storm when Murray County traveled to Gilmer for a game. Gilmer High School baseball coach Jeff Thurman said when he heard about what happened to the Indians’ field he wanted to do something to help out. 

“I had seen a few parents made some Facebook posts about the damage the tornadoes and the storm caused to Murray County’s baseball field the night it happened. We had just recently played Murray in Chatsworth. When I heard that news I wanted to reach out,” he said. “I automatically reached out to our Dugout Club officers and said, ‘Do you mind if we do something for their baseball team?’ since I knew they would be coming to play up here. All our Dugout Club officers and parents were all for it.”

What happened next was more than anyone from Murray County could’ve asked for.

“Our parents and coaches and players decided, let’s take up an offering,” Thurman said. “We were playing Fannin County in a Saturday doubleheader, and two days later we had Murray coming in. We decided to pass around the hat, so to speak, and collect money for Murray County baseball in an effort to help them and their repairs. We had tons of parents donate their resources and our Dugout Club. We raised 500 total dollars.”

Murray County played at Gilmer on March 6. Before the game began, Thurman and the Gilmer Dugout Club made a presentation to Alderdice and the Murray County Boosters.

“It was completely unexpected,” Alderdice said. “We went and had our coaches meeting before the game. They said, ‘Hey, before you go back, is anyone from your Booster Club here?’ I didn’t know what was going on, and lo and behold they had a check from what they took up at a Gilmer-Fannin game. I was choking up out there. Then after the game — had a nice game, we lost but had a nice, competitive game — they called us out again and wanted to take a team picture of their team, our team. I’m kind of a softie for that stuff. I started choking up again. It’s real uplifting.”

Thurman presented the $500 check to Murray County, a gesture that touched every player, coach and parent in the green and black.  

“Since then, all the Murray County players had wrote personal thank you letters to myself and the Dugout Club here at Gilmer for what we had done,” Thurman said. “It started off as ‘What can we do to help?’ and it ended up being a nice collection and a nice show of unity.”

Two weeks after the storm, pieces of aluminum siding hanging off structures in the facility still rattle in the breeze. A short distance away, the Indians players are hard at work in the school’s batting cages, spirts as high as ever. While that may not have been the case from the start, the coaches say the kids have responded extremely well.

“Initially it was deflating when they saw the field the first week,” Murray County assistant coach and former player Josh Ensley said. “We didn’t have any home games at the time so that was helpful. We didn’t have to see that emotion reach the field itself at game time. Since then, they see it’s coming along and it’s not as bad as it could’ve been. Our heads are holding higher now. The kids are more up and excited for the season to come.”

“The day after this all occurred we played at Southeast and played a heck of a ball game and got a win,” Smythe added. “We’ve actually been playing good ball ever since.”

Ensley is a 2009 Murray County High School graduate and said fellow alumni have showed their support to help in the cleanup efforts.

“A lot of the alumni that I’ve played with over my years here have actually been willing to help us clean up,” he said. “To have community support, the people here in this county, I’ve seen them on Facebook, Twitter talking about it. We need to get out there and help the team, help the school. Especially the alumni I talk to regularly, they really want to be a part of this and help.”

Murray County athletic director Greg Linder said on Wednesday that progress is being made concerning insurance coming in and bids going out to companies to fix the field. 

“Now we’re just waiting to finish out with the bids, looking toward playing on the field,” Linder said. “Really it consists of getting the locker room and dugout facilities dry and get the fencing up. If we can get those things done we’ll be able to play. Once we get the bids accepted we can start working. … I’ve been told once they get started they can get it done in a week. So we’re hopeful we can get back out there real soon.”

After today’s game with Haralson County, the next scheduled home game was with Bremen on March 23. Linder said that game has been switched to be played at Bremen, with the originally scheduled road game against Bremen on April 12 now scheduled to be played at Murray County. 

The next scheduled home game, the one which Linder said is the target date to be back on the field, is March 28 against Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe.

Alderdice said it’s a big deal for his team, especially its one senior Hayden Busie, to be able to play on its home field. 

“We want to play on that field as soon as we can. We want to play there at least by senior night for Hayden,” Alderdice said. “Whatever that home field advantage is, we feel comfortable there. That’s where we play, where we practice. We want to get out there as soon as possible.”