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A group of current and former Rice student-athletes used their some of their brief free time after the end of classes in May to for an international good-will trip by the Rice chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes FCA) to help some youngsters in some adverse conditions.
Jaeger Bull (Football), Annie Walker & Caleigh Page (Soccer), Hanna Huston & Cailey Ranken (Swimming), Alexah Chrisman & Gabby Stanton (Women's Basketball) and ShelbyLivingstone (Volleyball) along with leaders Joe Hornberger and Adaeze Obinnah traveled to Guatemala City for more than a week's worth of volunteer service.
In Guatemala City the Rice group did repairs at a school and gave long overdue make-overs to some of the local sports facilities. The goal was to provide the children in impoverished neighborhoods with a better option than a life on the streets.
"We cleaned and repainted indoor soccer and basketball courts at schools and community centers," said Page. "The kids there are growing up in some pretty hard circumstances. We worked with in-country staff and volunteers to improve their schools and athletic facilities - give them somewhere they are proud to go."
The outreach initiative, however, was not limited to paint buckets and landscaping. The Rice student-athletes also interacted with local children by hosting soccer and basketball clinics. Demonstrating soccer and basketball may not be the very best sports for senior swimmer Huston, but she reported that was among the least of obstacles.
"We would play lots of soccer," Huston said. "Given the language barrier, the element of teamwork was slightly compromised. This was more clearly demonstrated when one of our team members thought they thought they were calling for the ball, but apparently what they were shouting was Spanish for 'desserts!, desserts!'"
Smiles are one thing that need no translation. This was apparent when meeting and praying with many of the children's families. The Guatemala families may have been without many material possessions, but they did seem to have an abundance of appreciation, kindness, and warmth of spirit.
"We went to the scrap-metal home of one Guatemalan woman and she didn't have much," Chrisman said. "She didn't have electricity, a bed of her own, nor anything over her dirt floor. Yet, she wanted to give us what little food she did have to thank us for simply being there."
Rice student-athletes recognize their University's education is certainly among the best the country has to offer, no question. The Owls who made this service trip may have been half a world away from the Sallyport, but all seem to say they received a different kind of education that they now value as much as pursuing a Rice degree.
Leaving Guatemala was hard for everyone because of the special bonds we formed with the kids and families we met," said Livingstone, a senior on the Owl volleyball team. "I believe though our whole group came back to the states with an excitement and a fervor to bring the joy and love we experienced from the people of Guatemala to our teams, coaches, and the Rice community as a whole."
Rice was unable to answer that initial score after they were pinned inside their own 10-yard line after a short return of the kickoff and a pair of penalties eventually setting up the Cardinal on a short field, which they quickly converted to double their advantage.
Saturday night Rice Owls alumni, donors and fans gathered on the 32nd floor of the InterContinental Sydney hotel's Supper Club bar, where they socialized and took in some breathtaking views high above the Sydney Harbour and the city.
Who is back for the Owls?
"We have 1,800 students at the senior school and another thousand students at our prep school," he said. "We're really trying to professionalize (integrate) how we treat sports within the education sector, so I think it's a great link with what Rice students are doing with matching their academics with their performance of sports."
After the flag football scrimmage ended, the Rice players organized the Knox students into five groups for the five stations they had set up. Each group ran six-minute drills. In total, there were 120 year-seven (seventh-grade) students at the quarterback, running back and offensive lineman, receiver, cornerback and safety, and defensive line and linebackers stations.
At one end of the pitch (playing field), someone from Knox had brought their bagpipes to life in what appeared to be an outdoor shed. That's when Rice freshman offensive lineman Gregor MacKellar, who is from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, mentioned he played the bagpipes. A few minutes later MacKellar started belting out some really good bagpipe music.
At about the same time the Rice-Knox event was wrapping up, the rest of the Owls were taking turns visiting the New South Wales' 
"To get here and see how eager everyone was to ask questions, to get knowledge and see how excited they are about sports in the United States, it was energizing," Blair said. "I was glad to help and spread knowledge about what we do and how we do it and to help spread the word about NCAA competition."
Also attending practice were Stephen and Tonya Trammell, the parents of freshman wide receiver and punt returner Austin Trammell. Along with a group of approximately 40 other Rice Owl parents, the Trammells arrived in Sydney this morning.
Upon arriving at the university, the team posed for a group photo in front of the main campus building, which led into the unique academic quad where the team would break into groups and start a walking tour of campus. The quadrangle's architecture was inspired by Oxford and Cambridge universities -- so much so that the architecture is evenly split in half, with one side representing Oxford and the other Cambridge.
Following Fowler's introduction, Wayne Cotton, associate dean for the School of Education and Social Work, led a panel on American and Australian college sports. On the panel were Oliver Luck, executive vice president of regulatory affairs with the NCAA; Joe Karlgaard, Rice's director of athletics; Rob Smithies, executive director of Sydney University Sport and Fitness; and Leonie Lum, elite program manager, Sydney University Sport and Fitness.
After leaving Sydney Airport at 8:15 a.m., the team took about a 25-minute drive in rush-hour traffic to David Phillips Sports Complex on the campus of the University of New South Wales for a 12-period practice. The university, which is more than 60 years old, has nearly 53,000 students, and the sports complex accommodates 40 clubs and 5,000 athletes, according to its director, Craig Davis. That includes tennis, 15 field hockey teams, 25 football (soccer) teams, five gridiron (American football) teams, eight Australian rules teams, five baseball teans, five rugby teams and cricket. Davis is a footballer himself. He played in the Australian Rules Football league for 16 years, including appearing in nine Grand Finals, "or as you Americans call it, 'Super Bowls,'" he said.
In the evening the team, coaches, staff and Owl supporters shoved off for a dinner cruise in Sydney Harbour, passing by the world-famous Sydney Opera House and the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge, 
To prepare for the early start to the season and the unusually long travel for their first game, the Owls opened summer camp a week early and have been preparing the student-athletes not only for football on the field but the long flight and the visit to a foreign country.