Andrew Whitworth recalls Hurricane Katrina horror and explains why he does so much for community
FORTY-YEAR-OLD Andrew Whitworth has a passion for charity work that dates back to seeing the horror of Hurricane Katrina unfold before his eyes.
The Los Angeles battering ram played college football for Louisiana State when the disaster swept through and killed more than 1800 Americans in 2005.
“Our basketball arena became a triage,” he recalled
“Players delivered beds and set them up. We collected extra gear from the athletic dorms to give to these people. It was something. They had nothing.
“Katrina hit when I was a senior at LSU. Baton Rouge went from half a million people to a million, in a week.
“We waited 40 minutes to get gas. We didn't have power for two weeks. For weeks and months, grocery stores didn't have milk.
“After Katrina, people who'd lost everything they had told me they still had their LSU season tickets, and would be there every game.
“I took one lesson from that: How grateful I was, for all I had.”
Whitworth spent more than a decade playing for Sunday's opponents Cincinnati Bengals before joining the LA Rams in 2017.
Remarkably he’s still playing the game he loves at 40 years of age despite being in one of the most physical positions on the field.
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He laughed: “Everyone gives you the old jokes.
“It's pretty cool for me to think I'm going to be going out on the field and facing some 22 or 26-year-old defensive end who thinks nothing can phase them and when they get hit they feel fine.
“I'm just trying to put my body together enough to make it through a game.
“It's so much fun to go out there and play that way. I have so much gratitude to have lasted this long in the NFL.
“It's really special to be playing a franchise and city that I invested 11 years in. It was a place we knew every restaurant we went to and we knew everybody by name in every story.
“To have both franchises I’ve poured my heart and soul into to be playing in the Super Bowl is just unbelievable.
“You play this game to win the ultimate prize and it would be a heck of a moment to be able to do it in this way.”
One of Whitworth’s driving forces is his charity work and giving back to the community.
He donated £60,000 to victims of a 2018 shooting in LA and, along with his wife Melissa, given around $1million in funds to help high-school students in Louisiana.
And $20,000 from each game cheque this season has gone to helping repair homes in Louisiana after Hurricane Ida caused $75bn worth of damage last year.
Whitworth also helps LA’s homeless and at-risk population through his ‘Big Whit for LA Families’ program.
He said: “I lived through things that were catastrophic for our community. I’ve seen the inspiration of sports and what it means to people.
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“I think any time you have an opportunity to wrap your arms around your community. It just lets people know you’re going through these things with them. And you’re doing all you can to help us all get through the best way possible.
“Our sports don’t exist without fans who come to games and support us. Anything we can do to support our community is something we have to do.”