HAYFIELD — The Hayfield football team was hoping to raise a little extra cash for cancer research when they teamed up with the Hayfield volleyball team to sell some t-shirts last fall.

What resulted was the sale of 500 t-shirts in a town with the population of 1,300.

The Hayfield football team recently received a community service award from the Minnesota High School football coaches’ association for their efforts in raising what amounted to be $3,000 for the Eagles Cancer Telethon.

“It was a good effort for both teams and when you think about it, almost half of the people in town bought a shirt,” former Hayfield head football coach Grant Klennert said.

While a lot of money was raised, there was also a catch. Whoever raised the least cash between the football and volleyball teams would have to go through a practice with the other squad.

As fate would have it, the volleyball team raised more and the Viking football players had to wear spandex and work on their spiking form for a day.

“It was different, because it was a lot more ab work then we were used to,” said Hayfield senior Caleb Gilbertson, who was on the Hayfield football team this past fall. “It was a little weird, because we’re not used to just wearing spandex. We made the most fun of it and had a good time with it.”

Gilbertson said the athletes were hoping to sell 50 or 100 shirts, but they did much better than that. He said the feeling of raising so much money for a good cause is very satisfying.

“There’s been a lot of people in our community that have had cancer and we’re really strong against cancer,” Gilbertson said. “It feels really great to be recognized for doing something to help the community.”