SB Nation’s Syracuse blog sending hundreds of Houston kids to Texas Bowl

On December 16, Sean Keeley of SB Nation’s Syracuse blog, Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician, wrote a post asking for donations to send Houston-area kids to the Texas Bowl. They had done this twice before, sending 32 and 48 children, respectively, to Syracuse games in 2010. But this year, they wanted to raise the bar a bit higher.

Keeley and the Syracuse community nearly quadrupled the sites original goal of $12,000, raising $44,444.44 to send more than 1,400 kids to the 2013 Texas Bowl to see Syracuse take on Minnesota.

The charitable act did not escape the notice of Syracuse head coach Scott Shafer, who commended Keeley for the idea.

Brett McMurphy named Keeley the bowl season MVP live on SportsCenter, and the story has been covered by multiple major media outlets, including CBS Sports, Syracuse.com, the Houston Chronicle, Deadspin, Yahoo, the Times Union, the Daily Orange, Business Insider and ThinkProgress.

Keeley is considering having this kind of fundraiser again in the future, although other options may be in play.

We’re gonna have to have a community discussion about where we go from here. Clearly, a lot of people want to do these kinds of things. But maybe there’s an easier way? Maybe we can think about things beyond one game? Maybe we can think about things beyond sports? It’s something to talk about after the game for sure.

Our warm thanks to Keeley, the NunesMagician community and everyone who donated for such a great act of kindness.

• Bowl season TV schedule, with scores and recaps along the way

• Modern Hate: Four huge, behind-the-scenes stories on college football rivalries

• The big, beautiful SB Nation All-America Team

• College football news | Michigan State suspends captain from Rose Bowl

• Long CFB reads | The death of a college football player