William Penn Athletics Reaching Out To Texas

Joe Reagan, Nik Rule, and Blake Sandquist pose with the first shipment of clothing headed to Houston. (submitted photo)

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The word spread after University of Houston men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson made the call for fresh, clean clothing, and athletic departments around the country have been stepping up to the challenge.

Locally, William Penn University answered the call in a big way.

Nik Rule, William Penn Athletic Director, spoke with Oskaloosa News about the effort the school is taking on to help the people of Houston.

Rule said William Penn University’s Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach Blake Sandquist, Director of Corporate Relations Joe Reagan along with Rule started texting each other about the message Sampson had sent out.

A campus email went out, on Tuesday, “and we’ve just been blown away by the entire university coming forward.”

Over 400 shirts, jackets, pants, and shorts were donated by departments and teams campus-wide.

The deadline for the donations is on Thursday, but there was already so much, the university already sent out a shipment. “Because it was taking control of my office,” said Rule.

“It’s been unbelievable the community support,” said Rule of the response. “It all started with a tweet.”

Rule says that a second shipment is being planned here shortly.

“We want to be leaders in everything we do at William Penn, and we thought this was a great opportunity to show we recognize what’s going on, and we wanted to do what we could to help them,” said Rule. “Our entire university community embraced the effort.”