Sooner Sports TV Presents Sooners for Haiti

NORMAN, Okla. -- Sooner Sports TV powered by FOX Sports premieres its first original feature series, Seed Sowers, Sunday, Sept. 30, at 9 p.m. Central.

The one-hour episode Sooners for Haiti follows a group of more than three dozen University of Oklahoma football and women's basketball student-athletes and staff on their week-long journey at the Mission of Hope in Titanyen, Haiti.

Seed Sowers: Sooners for Haiti debuts on FOX Sports Oklahoma (COX 37/722 HD; U-Verse 754/1754 HD; DirecTV 679 in Oklahoma City) following live coverage of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau Bedlam Series women's soccer game between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State from Stillwater.

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The trip was the third annual expedition by OU student-athletes to the earthquake-ravaged island. The brainchild of OU women's basketball assistant coach Jan Ross and Journey Church of Norman executive college pastor Adam Barnett, the first assembly of Sooners visited the island in May 2010. This was just four months after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Port-au-Prince, killing nearly 250,000, forcing more than one million Haitians into homelessness and leaving more than 40,000 children orphaned.

"What stood out most was probably just the hope of the people in Haiti," OU women's basketball senior Whitney Hand recalled. "They are able to continue to worship and smile throughout devastating circumstances. They have so much faith when they have so little and it's awe-inspiring to know that mankind has the ability to overcome challenges."

The Mission of Hope was created in 1983 and swelled following the January 2010 earthquake as 80 percent of Haiti's population was thrust into abject poverty. Sooners for Haiti demonstrates OU's involvement in one of the most distressed locations in our world community as Sooners undertake roles at the Mission of Hope's onsite orphanage, medical facility, school and church and are inspired by the indomitable will of its tenants.

"There are two things that I will always remember," Ross said. "One is how good our student-athletes are. I'm always proud of the way they carry themselves and the people that they are. But, doing things like that, takes it to another level. The other is the smiles of the kids in Haiti. To be able to smile through all that they've suffered is amazing."

The Seed Sowers series marks the debut for Sooner Sports TV-produced feature programming following the announcement of the 10-year multimedia partnership between the University of Oklahoma and FOX Sports.

The multi-platform network provides for immediate and wide distribution of at least 1,000 hours of OU sports programming annually on a variety of FOX Sports outlets, including FOX Sports Oklahoma, FOX Sports Southwest and FOX College Sports. The initiative launched on Sept. 1 prior to OU's football game with UTEP.

Sooner Sports TV programming blocks will also showcase a variety of original programming and studio shows, including coaches' shows, weekly magazine shows and press conferences. The school will also tap into its extensive vault of historical archives and give fans the opportunity to relive some of the great games and moments in Sooner history.

Encore presentations of Seed Sowers: Sooners for Haiti on FS Oklahoma are scheduled for Friday, Oct. 5, at 9 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 7, at 9 p.m., and Friday, Oct. 19, at 7 p.m.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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