KANSAS CITY, Mo. — First conference title since 1933? Top seed in the postseason tournament? Big 12 Baseball Coach of the Year?
Brad Hill had every excuse to celebrate this week in Bricktown. Instead, all he could think about was the rubble. The rubble and those kids.
"Quite honestly," Kansas State's baseball coach told FOX Sports Kansas City from Oklahoma City on Tuesday, "baseball was not even a thought."
An EF5 tornado, with winds between 200 and 210 miles per hour, touched down Monday in Moore, Okla., a suburb just south of the state's capital, site of the Big 12 Conference Tournament. As of Tuesday morning, 240 were reported injured and another 24 reportedly killed, including nine children. Two elementary schools were leveled in the storm's path.
"You hear ‘an elementary school,' man, that just breaks your heart," said Hill, whose team arrived Monday as the tornado was passing through. "We had iPads out on the bus, and we were watching it as we're going (south).
"Our No. 1 concern was making sure we didn't run smack into the middle of it."
They didn't, but the tournament didn't exactly escape unscathed. The Big 12 announced Tuesday that it was pushing back the start of the event from Wednesday to Thursday and changing the format from double-elimination to pool play. The Wildcats will be placed in a pool with fourth-seeded Oklahoma, fifth-seeded Baylor and eighth-seeded Texas Tech.
And with some of their Wednesday schedule unexpectedly freed up, K-State's baseball team also plans to assist in the recovery effort.
Hill said the team has talked, for example, about heading to a nearby Wal-Mart to shop for supplies and basic items for families displaced by the tornado.
"We'll get in an hour of practice," he said. "And then (Wednesday) afternoon, we'll take some time and go do the things we need to do to try and help."
The ripples from Monday's damage were felt far and wide in other locales, too. Kansas State basketball coach Bruce Weber was delayed for a long spell Tuesday at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport because of the storms. Meanwhile, Chiefs players with Oklahoma ties were aghast at the images being relayed from their old stomping grounds.
"I know I have a lot of friends, old teammates out there," offensive tackle Donald Stephenson, who played at Oklahoma from 2007-2011, said after the team's mid-day Organized Team Activity (OTA). "And so my prayers go out to everybody in Oklahoma right now."
As the Sooners' Norman campus is roughly 10 miles from the tornado's path, the big lineman figured he has driven through Moore "a lot of times, and it'll be weird to see how it looks right now. But, you know, I'm just praying for everybody out there."
New Chiefs linebacker Orie Lemon, who played at Oklahoma State from 2006-10, said he had "one friend down there, but he's OK. … It's a sad story, being that I went to school right down the street from it."
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter @seankeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.
