MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Jays spent part of Thanksgiving Day watching football together and playing some catch themselves.
Just last weekend, the 13U team won big in Louisiana, advancing the boys to D1 Nation's West Coast National Championship in Las Vegas, happening Dec. 20-22.
"We can eat how we want, but we go to practice and just run it off," player Deandre Walker said of his upcoming Thanksgiving meal.
In Vegas, they plan to honor their junior coach, Marcell Mitchell.
"He wants us to win all the tournaments," Marcell's twin brother, Marqueal Mitchell, said. "He used to get mad at us when we didn't. He used to punish us for it. He used to make us run for it."
"He was all in my ear just nagging and nagging, 'You could have did that. You could have did that,'" fellow teammate Deandre Walker said. "It was like, you can't do nothing because he's your coach, but he's your age!"
This is the first Thanksgiving Marqueal is spending without his twin.
"Now we really gotta do it, win it, for him now," he said.
Some of the parents explained that while Marqueal is a team captain, Marcell didn't play due to a heart condition. On May 26, he died at 13 years old.
The Jays are the same team that, four years ago, had to move fields after shots were fired during a practice. A couple of years later, someone they looked up to was killed in another shooting — Deshaun Hill. He used to play for the Jays.
But the Jays are like brothers. They've added Marcell's number, 10, to their jerseys to honor him. Support has been a common theme for this team.
Twice now, the community stepped up to cover travel costs through the team's in-person and online fundraisers. The Jays returned from both Rantoul, Illinois, in July 2023 and Atlanta in Dec. 2023 as national champs.
Now they're asking for help in the form of $15,000 for Vegas, as they say, many of their parents are single moms with limited income, and airfare is only part of the expense list.
"We usually do grocery banking at like local Cubs or we do like door knocking," said Brayden Sjostrand, who joined the team with Drake Betzler last year.
"I don't wanna just be like, have someone hand everything to me," teammate Aedyn Levells added. "I wanna be able to work for it."
The team officially launched their online fundraiser Thursday and shared with KARE a message for anyone who can help:
"Thank you," Betzler said. "Some people have never been on flights before, so we're trying to make it a good experience for them."
"Yeah, I'm really grateful you're making it possible for the Minnesota Jays," Sjostrand added.