Football: Kotwica, Randle El, Thomas give back to happy campers
By Chris Murphy For Sun-Times Media June 26, 2011 9:02PM
New Orleans Saints running back Pierre Thomas explains what he wants from the players at his football camp at T.F. South High School in Lansing, Ill. on Saturday, June 25, 2011. | John Smierciak~For Sun-Times Media
Updated: October 28, 2011 11:59AM
New York Jets assistant special-teams coordinator Ben Kotwica stood at midfield of Bremen High School’s football field and delivered his opening speech as if he were talking to his squad back in the U.S. Army — where he served seven years — or giving a pregame speech to the Jets before the AFC championship.
“There is no such thing as I can’t,” Kotwica told his audience. “You do everything 100 percent or you don’t do it at all.”
Every direction from Kotwica to his audience was followed with “on the hop.”
Less than six miles down the road, at Thornton, Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antwaan Randle El spoke like a preacher to his congregation, delivering his beliefs, no matter how out of context they may have seemed.
“Sex is not the answer,” Randle El said. “If you’re having premarital sex with some young lady then you’re cheating on your future wife.
“There is nothing you do in life that will not eventually come to light.”
Less than nine miles down the road, at T.F. South, New Orleans Saints running back Pierre Thomas spoke as if he were a teacher talking to his students.
“Hard work and dedication is what you need in anything that you do,” Thomas said. “If someone tells you, you can’t, then you prove them wrong.”
In less than a 15-mile radius on Saturday, three different men who rose from Southland high schools to the NFL provided three different takes on football and life itself in free camps that put more than 300 young athletes through their paces.
Camping with Kotwica
At the second annual “The Proud and the Brave Football Camp,” Kotwica had 75 students of the game, ages 7 to 14, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. He took the same approach he would as if he were coaching his Jets squad, even if just one Jets player had more facial hair than the entire camp combined.
“The principles are all the same,” Kotwica said. “Whether you’re dealing with NFL players or young kids, you set your standards on what you’re looking for and then you have to enforce it.
“Today, we’re looking for some fun and enthusiasm and it’s just a great day of being around the game.”
Although Kotwica talked a big game about enforcing the same principles he would with his NFL team, the little kid in him came out as he slammed his body on the field, showing the kids how to do a correct up-down. He had a smile nearly as broad as those on the faces of the kids watching.
“He’s great with kids,” said Bremen varsity football coach Dan Stell, who was a teammate of Kotwica’s at Andrew. “If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t have this camp.”
Camping with Randle El
Randle El’s sixth annual Youth Football Academy was more like a full-time job than a day of fun for the estimated 120 participants.
From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., players from the ages of 13 to 18 were put through vigorous drills not only on the field but off the field as well.
“First of all, we’re teaching about Christ and what it means to be a man,” Randle El said. “Right now you have kids thinking that you’re a man if you have sex with a lady, but that’s what the world depicts.
“That doesn’t make you a man. We’re trying to teach the kids to be pure. And then we go into the football aspect.”
Is a football camp full of teenage boys the right place to be preaching about sex and beliefs in Jesus Christ?
“It has a place at my football camp,” Randle El said. “I’m blessed to be where I’m at only because God has given me the opportunity to be where I am.
“Before kids come, we promote it as that. They know they are coming to this. (Talking about God at the camp) is not a surprise or anything like that.”
Dionna Love, a director of the camp, reiterated that the flyer, which says, “(The camp) also emphasizes solid citizenship, being a leader and the importance of God,” made every person signing up for the camp aware of exactly what the camp would teach.
“We make sure that it says we will teach life skills, on the field training and the importance of God,” Love said. “It’s geared toward abstinence and talking about sex. (Randle El) makes sure he puts that out there.”
For 13-year-old Chris Casey, who plans to attend Brother Rice High School in the fall of 2012, the words stuck.
“I’m taking a lot out of it,” Casey said. “When I hear something, I take it to heart.
“It changes some of the ways I think about stuff. I pretty much am learning how to be with God and that you have to keep your friends and family close.”
Camping with Thomas
Like a cool-down after a long run, Thomas’ first skills camp, as opposed to Kotwica and Randle El’s camps, was two hours of basic offensive and defensive skills, but he too wanted to instill life lessons in his 75 participants, ranging from fourth to eighth grade.
“We aren’t just teaching them how to be good athletes, but good people as well,” Thomas said. “We want to teach these kids that education is very important and you want them to have a good lifestyle in whatever they want to do.”
Thomas also wanted to instill in the kids the idea of knowing your roots.
“This is where I’m from; this is where I grew up,” Thomas said. “I wanted to give back to T.F. South and the kids around me. You can’t forget where you came from.”
T.F. South offensive tackle and linebacker Cameron Brown, a senior, gave up an all-important summer Saturday to ably demonstrate that message to the younger players.
“I feel like this is a way of me giving back to the community,” Brown said. “I’m not a big celebrity like Pierre Thomas, but I can still give back and that’s what I plan on doing.”
Although he wasn’t a student in Thomas’ class, Bremen senior fullback Taiyon Jones seems to have learned the lesson as well while working Kotwica’s camp.
“It feels good because I know I can wake up in the morning and say I’m doing something for the neighborhood and the kids,” Jones said. “I’m trying to teach them to do something instead of staying on the streets.”
Rather than have three separate camps in a 15-mile radius, Thomas didn’t rule out the chance of a giant camp with all three NFLers in the future.
“It shows how guys are dedicated to give back to their hometowns,” Thomas said. “Hopefully we can all come together some time and have a big camp.”
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