Beyond the X: Joplin High School rises above rubble 1 year after tornado

Football coach committed – Chris Shields
Chris Shields said it was a calling. He wasn’t even looking for a job. But there on the Internet in December of 2010 was a posting for the head football coach position at Joplin High School.

Shields, the head coach at Holt (Wentzville, Mo.) for five seasons, had grown up in a small town nearby in southeast Kansas and considered Joplin a big city.

“I always felt Joplin was a sleeping giant,” he said. “And frankly, this was a chance to be closer to home and to coach at a 6A school. This was a job with lots of potential.”

Shields and his wife had just built a house in Wentzville, a suburb of St. Louis. He just needed her blessing to apply. When she said yes, all signs were a go. When he won over Joplin’s administration and got the job in March of 2011, the calling seemed complete.

But then the twister seemed to destroy all that. Or did it?

Instead of staying put in Wentzville, Shields kept his commitment and led Joplin’s charge in 2011-12. The team won only three games – and lost eight – but by all accounts he was Coach of the Year material.

“He was the right guy at the right time for us,” Joplin athletic director Jeff Starkweather said. “He kept our guys united and on task and focused. He cared about the kids and frankly that was the most important thing.”

Senior 5-foot-8, 183-pound linebacker Michael Queen said football practice and time with his teammates was the best part of his day. His family missed the tornado by six houses, he said, and felt a great deal of survivor’s guilt all year. A church right across his street was hit.

“You just kind of wonder why it wasn’t you,” Queen said.

He got away from all those questions at football practice.

“Football was a huge distraction,” he said. “Instead of seeing destruction every day you were at football practice among friends. You were a kid again and didn’t have to grow up so fast.”

Shields, 36, said his calling for Joplin was even stronger after the tornado. Even though he and assistants Ethan Place and Brandon Taute – also brought down from Holt - all lost their rental homes.

The trio made the five-hour drive to Joplin the day after the tornado to help with the relief effort. They’ve been 100 percent Eagles ever since.

“It was just a one-day-at-a-time process for all of us,” Shields said. “If you stop and think how much has to be done you can go crazy. The best way I know of doing this is put your head down, do what you have to do next and then do what’s next on the list after that.”

Besides, he couldn’t possibly turn his back on kids like Quinton Anderson, Danny Drouin and Austin Barnett.

Anderson lost both of his parents in the tornado and he was feared dead as well after he was missing for three days. He had fractured his skull, broken his back and shattered an eye socket.

He couldn’t possibly play but he attended practices and games, and teammates named him a co-captain. He gained enough strength to play on the Joplin baseball team in the spring and enough focus to keep up on his studies. Anderson was a Rudy Award national finalist for inspiration.

He'll study molecular biology at Harding University in the fall. His perseverance and story has been at the heart of the Joplin road to recovery.

"I'm one of those people that doesn't cry when people are around, so when I was alone at nights, I would cry," he told CBS news reporter Ben Tracy. "It was just kind of the realization, like, I'm an orphan now, and I have my sister.

"I miss my mom's smile and I miss my dad's goofy laugh. They were kind of a goofy couple, but they loved each other." 

Said Shields: "Some of the things these boys have been through is more than any kid should have to go through."

Like Barnett. Not only did his family lose their home in the tornado but so did the homes of three other family members in town. What are the odds?

“We now live way out in the boonies,” Barnett said. “But thankfully we still all have each other. That’s all that really matters.”

The 5-10, 185-pound junior and his family were forced to move into southeast Kansas. Shields said somehow Barnett hasn’t missed even a workout. A special-teams standout last season, he’s improving rapidly and is in line to be a starting linebacker next season.

“Great kid, great motor,” Shields said. “You’d never know what’s been thrown at this kid. He’s just like our program. One day at a time. Full speed ahead.”

Drouin, the school’s top wrestler as well, was also dealt a severe blow last year. Ten days after the tornado, his father Alden “Skip” Drouin passed away peacefully on his 65th birthday.

Skip, a former principal at Joplin and hugely popular figure in the community, had suffered from failing health before the tornado. The national disaster seemed to speed up the inevitable.

Drouin, a 6-foot-1, 250-pound starting offensive guard, said his father’s connection to the Eagles was indelible. He absolutely loved Joplin High School athletics.

“I grew up the same way,” Drouin said. “And now I have a chance to participate as a Joplin Eagle on Friday nights and on the mat. It’s really exciting to me. I embrace every opportunity.”

Shields said Drouin is an unequivocal leader for the team, both in action and words.

“He does a great job for us,” Shields said. “He’s a great ambassador of our team who promotes our school and the game. He’s definitely a vocal leader and on the field he loves to get down and dirty.”

Drouin said classmates have undoubtedly become closer since the tornado.

“Before you might see someone in the halls and not say anything,” he said. “Now you ask how they’re doing and what is going on in their life.

“We may have lost our school and lost our facilities, but we didn’t lose our heart or desire to succeed. That’s all that matters.”

Without the newness of last season and all the scrambling to find footing, Shields is certain the Eagles will not repeat last year’s record. The team has been conditioning all spring, including workouts starting at 6 a.m.

“Three wins is never acceptable and we were disappointed in our record last year to say the least,” Shields said. “But at the same time I felt good about the progress and foundation that was laid. I’m definitely excited about the future of Joplin football.”