There’s not much Cliff Avril, the Lions’ defensive end, can do but sit by his phone and wait for news from Haiti after Tuesday’s devastating earthquake. Avril has several cousins who live in Haiti and he and his family have not heard if they were survivors.

“The biggest thing is we’d just like to know,’’ Avril said in a phone interview from his home in Jacksonville, Fla.

Avril was born and grew up in Florida, but used to visit his grandmother in Haiti every summer until she passed.

His parents grew up in the area around Port-au-Prince that was hit the hardest by the earthquake and that's where his cousins live. “I’ve been watching on TV. It’s crazy all the devastation,’’ Avril said.

For more on Avril’s connections to Haiti, see Thursday’s Oakland Press.
— PAULA PASCHE