FORT COLLINS – Itap just football.
Thatap maybe not the best mindset for a player to have on the first day of fall camp. Forgive Izzy Matthews if he has difficulty keeping his mind completely on practice this weekend. While he was taking handoffs and walking through pass protections in a helmet and shorts Friday, some his family members back in Redding, Calif., were hoping their homes were still standing
Among the wildfires covering the Northern California skies with smoke is the Carr Fire, a 69-square mile inferno thatap crossed into Redding, a town of 92,000, and already taken two lives. As of Friday evening, .
Matthews’ family’s home is on the east side of Redding, separated by the Sacramento River from a hefty chunk of the fire, but his parents work on the west side of town, with his father’s job outdoors.
“Looking at the videos and pictures, itap pretty crazy that something like that can happen,” Matthews said. “There was a pretty similar fire that happened when I was about 10 years old, back in ’08. Itap terrible. Itap so dry out there.”
Though Matthews’ home is safe, he doesn’t know if he can say the same for the house he grew up in. Matthews spent his whole childhood in Redding, growing up on the west side in the Mary Lake neighborhood. Many of the homes in that subdivision were completely destroyed, and his uncle and grandfather who live near there had to evacuate.
Matthews is attempting to stay positive, as a senior running back who has led the Rams in rushing touchdowns the past two seasons, a lot of CSU’s success this season rides on him. But he also knows there are plenty of folks back home whose fortunes aren’t the same as his.
“Itap tough. I have people texting me all day, including one of my best friends from high school. Her grandparents’ house got burned down and she’s texting me, devastated, sending me all of the reports,” Matthews said. “My immediate family is OK. But I’m out here, I have a job to do. It is on my mind, I can’t let it distract me too much.”