Thousands of dollars of football equipment stolen from North Carolina high school

A high school in North Carolina had thousands of dollars of football equipment stolen over the weekend.

The thefts at West Caldwell High School (Lenoir, North Carolina) took place on Sunday. The equipment stolen included nearly two dozen helmets that were taken from the football team’s fieldhouse.

The loss of the items stolen is estimated to be $12,000. The burglars appear to have broken into the fieldhouse to access the equipment.

The program’s head coach told Charlotte television station WSOC-9 that he is hoping the community will rally around and help the program in their time of need.

“Our community is going to step up and help. That’s what I told them. And I said we’re going to face it; we’re going to rise,” West Caldwell head coach Tony Pyland told Dave Flaherty of WSOC.

“Nothing that happened in the last few days takes away from what we’ve been doing since May.”

The police have been investigating the theft of the equipment and are looking for surveillance camera footage from locations near the school.

The West Caldwell coaching staff told WSOC that they will continue with their offseason workouts as scheduled, despite the loss of the helmets.