Tupelo High School hosts camp honoring Sam Westmoreland, helps SW78 foundation

It’s been eight months since the world lost Sam Westmoreland, but his memory was alive Saturday on the Tupelo football field.

“Sam Alton is here with us today. I know it,” Sam’s mother Amanda Lavender said. “He’s smiling down.”

Lavender wanted a way to carry on her son’s legacy and that’s how the SW78 Football Camp came to be. The inaugural camp saw a turnout of more than 60 campers — and nearly just as many counselors came to help out from all over in remembrance of the former Tupelo and Mississippi State offensive lineman.

Among the counselors helping out Saturday was former Tupelo and current Mississippi State linebacker Jett Johnson, who was also Sam’s teammate at MSU.

“We’ve kind of rallied around each other,” Johnson said. “It really shows how it’s not just talk when we say we’re family. We mean it when we say that.”

The camp is certainly geared toward helping kids develop their football skills, but Sam’s parents also want kids to learn how to live like Sam. To #LiveLikeSam is to live with kindness, compassion and love for everyone around.

“If the kicker missed a field goal and they lost the game, he was the one sitting beside him on the bus ride home,” Sam’s father Josh Westmoreland said. “If someone had a problem, they called him.”

During Sam’s senior year at Tupelo, he was given the Gold Standard Award — which recognizes character. His parents have chosen to use their SW78 Foundation to support a scholarship for that award recipient each year.

“He was a great football player, but he was a better friend and a better teammate and a better human being,” Josh said.

Along with funding the scholarship, his parents also hope to help establish mental health care at Tupelo High School.