Using the hotly contested football rivalry between the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma to generate donations for the people of Afghanistan
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Oct. 6, 2009 – In a Soviet-era aircraft hangar, a rivalry born during the Battle of the Red River is still alive and well, but now that energy is supporting the Afghan people. AF Maj. Tobin Griffeth, an avid University of Texas fan, and AF Capt. Katie Illingworth, a University of Oklahoma alum., created a personal game honoring the 2 schools' annual football rivalry, which every year is the talk of the 2 bordering states.
They enlist family-member support back home, giving one point to the corresponding school that donates a box of items such as school supplies, clothes and shoes to the people of Afghanistan. Texas is in the lead with 10 points, and Oklahoma has yet to get on the scoreboard, but Illingworth promised that "boxes are coming."
"We started this because it's the right thing to do," said Griffeth, graduate of University of Texas. "In a war where we'll spend millions on bombs or missiles, it only makes sense to spend money on clothes, or socks. I think this is a basic way we could help stop the Taliban and the insurgency -- by winning the Afghan people’s hearts and minds." It's also a way for Americans back home to help the Afghan people, he added. “They don't have much,” he noted, “and they hear nothing but bad things about America."
"It's somewhat trivial," Illingworth, an OU graduate, said about the rivalry game back home. "But, it's not as trivial as some think. Our rivalry is a big deal, and this is a unique channel that allows people back home to support their teams and support America. The energy is there already; we're just trying to redirect it somewhere else."
The group asks that no food or money be sent, but donations of winter clothes, school supplies and shoes are accepted. Donations can be sent via flat-rate priority boxes to CJTF-82-OSJA, APO AE 09354, addressed to Griffeth for Texas or Illingworth for Oklahoma.
The game started when their families asked the 2 officers what they could do to help. Soon, a postal worker in Texas started to send boxes as well, and now college fraternities, churches and an Eagle Scout are assisting. Even the airmen’s hometowns are involved, and donations are streaming in, Illingworth said. It's the goal of the 2 to get help from other universities too. They hope other college rivalries will pitch in, and mentioned the Alabama-Auburn Army-Navy rivalries specifically.
Griffeth is deployed from Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, and Illingworth is deployed from Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. Illingworth is a graduate of Catholic University's Law School in Washington, D.C. The lawyers are deployed with Combined Joint TF 82 in the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate. They both are fiscal and contracting lawyers.
