Is the NFL beginning to get a reputation like the NBA (which is what I call "thugs with money")? There are so many different things that make me wonder that have been in the news lately such as Pacman Jones, Michael Vick, and Tank Johnson. Or is it that these stories get the most press as opposed to the good things that happen?
Seriously, think about all the NFL players that have charitable foundations. Do we ever hear about that in the media? Why isn't there more press on things like that?...probably because people thrive on controversy and gossip. Why else do you think people like Paris Hilton get so much air time? It drives me crazy, honestly, but it's true.
I would like to give some "blog time" to some of the NFL players that actually do good things and try to give back to their communities or to underprivileged kids.
I would like to first highlight one of my favorite players to come out of my beloved University of Alabama which is DeMeco Ryans. He is with the Houston Texans currently and was the 2006 Defensive Rookie of the Year in the NFL. More impressively to me, are his accomplishments off the field. First of all, he graduated early from Alabama - 7 semesters. There certainly isn't enough attention given to those type of things!
He also hasn't forgotten where he came from - he came back to little ol' Bessemer, AL and did his first annual football camp just a week ago. Over 150 kids showed up for this free camp - it hardly got local press here in Birmingham! He did it because he said that every kid that plays football dreams of playing in the NFL one day and he wants to try and help them make that dream a reality. He believes in giving back to his community that helped him make his dream a reality and he also wants to teach them more than just the fundamentals of football. To me, this is exciting news that should be highlighted more.
I could also go on and talk about the off the field examples of local celebrity and former NFL player Jay Barker, Shaun Alexander's Family Foundation, Brett Favre's FourWard Foundation (of course), and even people that I hate to admit that I admire such as Kurt Warner's First Things First Foundation and Peyton Manning's PeyBack Foundation.
Furthermore, tucked away in the NFL news on NFLplayers.com is a story from April of this year when there was a gala honoring NFL players for their achievements off the field. I would have loved for this to have been given more attention. This gala raised money for Special Olympics and even honored my Pack's very own Donald Driver.
I guess my overall point is that there are plenty of good things that are going on in the NFL with its players, but unfortunately we don't hear about them very often so I wanted to bring a few of them "fourward" in the off season.