COLORADO SPRINGS – There is always a lot of blue and green at a Doherty High School basketball game but take a look around and you’ll notice the color red is just about everywhere. That’s because of Schafer Reichart.
Just last week the sophomore point guard was fighting for his life at Children’s Hospital in Denver, fighting off a sepsis infection after battling two outbreaks of the flu.
Teammate Brody Gish has been Schafer’s best friend since the fifth grade when they played club basketball together. Gish was one of the only people outside of immediate family to see him once he was admitted to the hospital. He couldn’t believe what he saw.
“It wasn’t Schafe when I saw him,” Gish said. “He was knocked out, it was tough to look at him and to see what he was going through and what he has been going through the last few days, last week… it was tough.”
Eric Steinert has been the head coach for Doherty the last two years but in all of his years on the bench, this was the hardest news to tell his players.
“We have a lot of 15 and 16-year-old’s and I think this was the first time in their lives that they have seen something like this up close with a close friend and it hit them hard,” Steinert said.
Since then the basketball community has rallied around Schafer and the Spartans. Rampart presented them special warm-up shirts before they played last Saturday. Some on the Spartan team even bought red shoes to honor Schafer’s love for Ohio State University.
“We have really expensive warmups but they said, “no, we are not wearing them – we’re going to wear these t-shirts because it meant that much to them.”
Schafer is awake and his mother Beth says he is getting a little better every single day. His teammates can’t wait for him to come back.
