Quality Care

Since 1962, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis has been saving and improving the lives of children stricken by cancer and other potentially fatal diseases.

Three years later, Memphis began hosting the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, with the game taking on an important philanthropic role in the community. It’s only natural that the game and the hospital became teammates from the start.

Flash forward about 50 years and the birth of the College Football Playoff (CFP) Foundation. Through its flagship program, Extra Yard for Teachers, the organization is devoted to lifting educators, especially in the hometowns of bowl games. This emphasis on supporting education hit right at home in Memphis and at St. Jude.

The Extra Yard for Teachers program has played a key role in supporting a unique part of the hospital: the St. Jude School Program, through which patients and their siblings continue their K-12 education while in Memphis.

“These families at St. Jude are in such tough situations dealing with life-threatening challenges,” said Steve Ehrhart, the game’s Executive Director. “The School Program allows the children to maintain their schooling and helps defray the disruption their lives are already facing. The St. Jude teachers are continuing the kids’ education, keeping them on trackand also by following up with their schools back home.”

The program has two aims: continuing educational activities and working to help prepare students to return to the classes they were forced to leave behind. This includes resources for teachers who may need assistance with accommodating students when they return from treatment.

Students who enroll in the program receive at least three hours of lessons per week. They’re encouraged to use books and assignments from their classrooms back home, and educators from the School Program coordinate with teachers from the patients’ and families’ hometowns.

The program employs six teachers, including two coordinators for English as a Second Language and a school liaison. The facilities include classrooms, offices for each teacher, a computer learning lab and a parent/family waiting area.

“It is an honor to partner with the Autozone Liberty Bowl to support the dedicated teachers at St. Jude Hospital,” said CFP Foundation Executive Director Britton Banowsky. “Through this grant, we are able to ensure that patients receiving care and treatment can also have access to effective teachers.”

Families come to St. Jude from all over the country because of the quality of care and for the price; all expenses are paid by St. Jude, including lodging.

While patients must be uprooted from home, siblings often come, too — either out of necessity or to maintain the family unit. The result is a number of school-age youngsters who are not able to go to class. Seeing a need, the hospital addressed it with their own School Program. The price to families, of course, is zero. This is where the AutoZone Liberty Bowl and the CFP Foundation come in, providing significant six-figure donations annually. At a ceremony last November, game officials handed over a check for $250,136.03.

“The AutoZone Liberty Bowl has been a terrific partner of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for many decades,” said Richard C. Shadyac, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. “This very generous contribution will be utilized to support the educational needs of the St. Jude faculty, staff and students who are sodedicated to the children at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.”

The deep resonance of this partnership is befitting the history of the Liberty Bowl, carrying on the ideals of its founder, A.F. “Bud” Dudley. After playing football at Notre Dame, where he was student body president of the Class of 1943, Dudley enlisted in the Air Force. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross among other honors for his bravery in flying 54 missions over Europe in World War II. After his term of service, he returned to his native Philadelphia and became athletic director at Villanova.

Looking over the landscape of college football, Dudley realized bowl games were clustered in the South and West. He wanted one on the East Coast, so he created his own. He also wanted to honor his fellow soldiers and the freedom they fought to provide. Considering he was living in Philadelphia, the name “Liberty Bowl” made sense.

After several games played in cold weather, Dudley took the Liberty Bowl show on the road. The 1964 edition of the game became the bowl’s first indoors, played at the Atlantic City Convention Hall.

The following year, Dudley brought the game to Memphis, where it has remained ever since. The charity tie-in runs so deep that a close look at the bowl game’s logo reveals the hospital’s name “St. Jude” across the bell’s yoke or handle.

Teams playing in the game always visit the hospital on their bowl trip and student-athletes spend time befriending patients and their families. News stories are broadcast to the student-athletes’ home markets, serving as important messaging for the hospital and its generous mission that no child is denied treatment based on race, religion or a family’s ability to pay. In particular, Ehrhart recalled a spike in donations from New York in 1996, when Donovan McNabb and Syracuse played in the Liberty Bowl versus Houston.

“The bowl game is practically a four-hour nationwide opportunity to emphasize the wonderful mission of the hospital,” said Ehrhart. “We are so happy to offer this platform.”