Football coach raises money to help players dress for success

NEW HOPE, Minn. (KMSP) - Shakespeare once wrote “clothes make the man”. Now a high school football coach in the north metro hopes his players take that saying to heart.

Cooper High School head football coach Willie Howard wants his players to start wearing dress shirts and ties to school on Mondays and Wednesdays to show their teachers they mean business and spiff up the negative image some people have of the school.

“In football it's 'look good, play good',” Howard says. “It’s the same concept in the classroom, it's 'look good, learn good.' If you go in there taking care of yourself, I truly believe the mind works better.”

Since the players have high profiles both on and off the field, Howard hopes getting them to dress a little nicer will start a new trend.

“Kids in school, they’re like ‘hey, I want to do that too’. Kids say ‘when we see you do it, we’re going to do it too’,” Cooper High School junior and football player Eric Abojei.

Even though the players have some shirts and ties, Howard is collecting donations to create a “community closet” for the ones who don’t have the money to buy them.

“If it only goes six months and has a powerful impact, we know we’ve done something right. If we help one kid, that’s one kid not helped yesterday,” Howard said.

Howard plans to start his “Dress for Success” program in a couple of weeks.

He started a Go Fund Me campaign to raise $3,000 to help build that “community closet”.

Donate to Cooper Football Dress for Success GoFundMe account here.