STEERING KIDS RIGHT
Hall of Famer lends life story to push kids toward right path
Hall of Famer Darrell Green shares life lessons to help youths handle adversity
Darrell Green, wearing his gold Pro Football Hall of Fame jacket, stood at the podium and exposed each of his biggest setbacks to the assembled students.
He recalled a brother who died of a drug overdose. The divorce of his parents. The vices — partying, alcohol and the spoils of fame — that were readily available during his 20-year career as a cornerback for the Washington Redskins. The time he fathered a child out of wedlock.
“Everything I have, I give to them,” Green told USA TODAY Sports later. “It’s not about me. If there’s one thing I can share that will help them, I pour it all out there.”
He was speaking to more than
400 middle and high school students Saturday morning inside a suite at M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens. Green, on behalf of Centene Corp., a health care business, has been a spearhead of the company’s Strong Youth, Strong Communities (SYSC) program.
Centene partnered with the Pro Football Hall of Fame in January and has organized summits to foster leadership, individuality, sound decision-making and the development of a moral code for boys and girls from throughout the country.
A key component, for Green, has been to bare his most trying times. And from that darkness, he reveals what he overcame to become a champion of family and integrity and a fixture in his community.
“I want the kids to have established a fundamental foundation for their life,” Green said. “What we call non-negotiables — something that they can stand on and be firm in their lives because there’s so much coming at them: media, a buddy down the street, the guy that potentially my mom is dating — it’s so much. We’re trying to give them an anchor. And that anchor will give them a sense of confidence, an assuredness about themselves.”
The event was free, and word helped spread through local chapters of the Urban League and Big Brothers Big Sisters. This was the fifth and most-attended SYSC summit since the start of
2017. The others took place in Ohio, Pittsburgh, Austin and Las Vegas.
In November, the organization will hold one in Los Angeles.
“The power of teaming up with the Pro Football Hall of Fame has allowed us to expand our reach and the impact of the program,” Centene vice president of community relations Joyce Larkin told USA TODAY Sports. “The Hall of Famers really have the ability to reach youths. And there’s just something about foot-
ball that brings people together.”
The crux of the program’s mission is to help instill ethical thinking that allows the students to respond favorably to complex social situations, such as bullying and peer pressure.
Green and Hall of Fame cor-
nerback Aeneas Williams started the event by addressing the entire group of students.
Later, the kids broke into smaller groups arranged by age and gender and were challenged to come up with their own personal experiences of adversity to discuss how they handled them, positively or negatively.
Nothing was off limits, and Green, Williams and the rest of the adult leaders of the program were there, primarily to listen.
One student from T.C. Williams High in Alexandria, Va., shared how his father became involved in dealing drugs. Another opened up about being teased by peers for not drinking and driving. One boy lamented the time police stopped him on a walk home from the store because he was black.
“It’s terrifying,” the boy said, “because any time you get pulled over, you have to wonder if that’s the day you’re going to die.”
Before arriving in cities to hold the summits, the program relies on local leaders and sorts through reports to hone in on matters specific to each region.
But these are young adolescents. And getting them to open up and make themselves vulnerable is difficult. The breakout sessions, however, are designed to give each person — even the most reserved — a voice.
“Some people don’t have the guidance to open up,” Paul Howard from Baltimore told USA TODAY Sports.
“Others don’t have the right motivation,” said Jack Shivers, 17, from Alexandria.
“This gives us something to relate to,” said Donovan Parker, 15, from Washington, D.C. “And now we can do this in the future. We can talk to the other generation and tell them how we had our struggles but we achieved greatness too.”
Centene agreed to a three-year partnership with the Hall of Fame. After the Los Angeles summit, both sides will reconvene to discuss what worked and which areas can be improved.
“I think it truly inspires us to a point where we can realize that, ‘Hey, I’m not the only one who went through a situation like that,’ ” said Jayson Jenkins, 14, from Baltimore. “So if (Green) went through it and look at how he turned out, maybe there’s a lot of hope for me that I, too, could follow my dreams and achieve what I want to be in life.”