Volunteer_Kirby
Its not what you think...
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Hundreds of University of Tennessee football jerseys are arriving in Israel after the university donated much of its old gear to the Israel Football League.
According to the IFLs coaching coordinator Dan Phillips, UT is the leagues largest donor by far, donating more than 700 practice jerseys along with compression gear and other equipment.
"For [Israels football players] to play, they have to pay roughly a thousand dollars to get equipment, Phillips said. The reason is that nobody in Israel sells or manufactures football equipment."
Last year, UT switched its sponsorship contracts from Adidas to Nike, rendering hundreds of items including some completely unused gear unusable.
Phillips, who also coaches football for Bearden High School, knew it was a perfect opportunity.
"I knew that they wouldn't be able to use anything that had an Adidas logo," he said, "so I knew there was going to be a lot of this stuff laying around.
The gear comes in different colors for the various teams, but many of the items still contain UTs branding.
In March, leaders with First Baptist Church in Morristown pitched in and, as a part of their Harvest of Israel ministry, shipped the gear for free.
This week, the gear finally arrived overseas.
"They're already fans of UT to some degree because of Peyton Manning, Phillips said. So it was one thing when they found out they had this great shipment of football gear coming. It was quite another thing when they found out it was from the University of Tennessee."
-WBIR, Knoxville
Pretty cool story. Good to see they are going to a good cause. Video here.