J. J. Watt, the star defender for the Houston Texans, is one of many pitching in to help his beloved city after Hurricane Harvey.
Watt announced a fundraiser for flood relief on the crowd funding site YouCaring.com, and the response has been enormous. His initial goal was $200,000, but by Tuesday morning fundraising had hit $1.2 million, he said.
"It's unbelievable," Watt said on Good Morning America of the overwhelming response from across the country. "The biggest part of it all is being able to see the power of what can happen when people come together. I think that's the beauty of the people in this country -- when they see somebody going through a tough time they all rally around. It's pretty incredible and we're going to be able to do a lot of great things to help rebuild this city, and we're trying to raise as much as we can because we know these recovery efforts are going to be massive."
By early Tuesday evening, the total had surpassed $3.7 million and his goal was bumped to $4 million.
"I want to keep setting it at these incremental levels where we have a goal to achieve," he said. "I don't want to set it at some crazy number but we keep increasing it by half a million here and half a million there.
"The beauty of it all is that it's not necessarily big donations that are coming in. It's $5 here, it's $10 there. It's people from all over the country giving whatever they can. It's really a crowdfunding effort, and I think that's so incredible to watch."
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St. Louis Cardinals infielder Matt Carpenter -- who was born in Galveston, Texas, and spent his youth in La Marque and Missouri City, both of which are near Houston -- has pledged to donate $10,000 for every home run he hits the rest of the season to help the damage in Houston.
Upon hearing what Carpenter was doing, teammate Adam Wainwright -- who is from Georgia -- said he'd match each $10,000 donation.
Carpenter, 31, has hit 17 home runs this season, including one on Sunday. If he keeps up that pace, a little bit of math tells us he could hit six or seven more home runs this season. Last year, Carpenter hit 21 home runs.
Family ties
Adam Scott figured his season was over after the PGA Championship, when he didn't make enough of a move in the FedEx Cup standings, and he was planning to miss the opening two playoff events to be home with his wife in Australia for the birth of their second child. He was certain to be outside the top 70 required to advance to the BMW Championship.
His wife gave birth to a son, Byron, on Aug. 18, and now Scott is headed to the TPC Boston this week at No. 73 in the standings, leaving him a reasonable chance of getting to Chicago.
Scott tends to keep family matters private. No one knew he had gotten married until a month after the wedding.
But that's nothing compared with Hideki Matsuyama. Only after the PGA Championship did Matsuyama reveal that not only was he married, he has a child.
"No one really asked me if I was married, so I didn't have to answer that question," he said last week. "But I felt that after the PGA would be a good time, because our baby is born and I thought that would be a good time to let everyone know."
Matsuyama said he was married in January. His daughter was born in July.
Sports quiz
How many home runs are the most Matt Carpenter has hit during a single season?
Sports answer
Carpenter hit a career-high 28 home runs in 2015.
Sports on 08/30/2017