NFL Play 60 hitting its stride League’s youth fitness program is just getting started as it enters its 10th year
Bobby Sena would not have gotten an apology from Tom Brady without eating his broccoli.
On the field of the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., nearly three years ago, after the most talked-about interception in Super Bowl history, Sena bumped into the iconic quarterback. It was an unintentional knock, far short of unnecessary roughness, but enough for Brady to feel he should say something to the Orlando teenager.
“Hey, I’m sorry,’’ Brady (6-4, 225), who is a foot taller and about a hundred pounds heavier than Sena, told the wide-eyed youth.
Replied Sena: “You’re Tom Brady. You won the game. You don’t have to be sorry.’’
The exchange came moments after the New England Patriots defeated the Seattle Seahawks 28-24, and it would not have happened if Sena was not involved with NFL Play 60. He was there after winning a contest tied to the league’s initiative to improve youth fitness through physical activity and healthy eating.
NFL Play 60, which began on Oct. 9, 2007, at the building of a playground in New Orleans, is capping its first decade this weekend.
“I can’t tell you that I thought we would be sitting here 10 years later still talking about it, thinking about the thousands of schools that the program is in and the millions of kids that it reaches every year, but that was our hope,’’ said Anna Isaacson, NFL senior vice president of social responsibility and one of Play 60’s founders.
Encouraging youths to devote 60 minutes a day to being active has become a movement. The NFL has invested $350 million-plus in various Play 60 programs through the years, and the returns have been promising. More than 16 million children participate annually in Play 60, according to the league.
In Florida, nearly 3,200 schools and more than 2.6 million students are involved in Fuel Up to Play 60, which emphasizes health and wellness through good eating and drinking habits.
“We do have people who eat a lot of junk food, and that’s their choice,’’ said Jon Siegel, a Fuel Up to Play 60 program administrator at Lakemont Elementary in Winter Park. “I would say at our school, healthy eating is a priority for most of the children. I would not say it’s 100 percent, because that would not be true, but [it’s] only moved up.’’
Siegel promotes better food choices by stocking a healthy snack cart at school. It’s the one-stop shop for not only yogurt and cheese sticks, but also apples, raisins and nuts, among other nutritious options to chips and candy.
Beyond the snack-well concept, Lakemont also has a blender bike, where students can make a smoothie by pedaling.
“It’s really an amazing thing,’’ Siegel said.
Charlotte Batten, a fifthgrader at Lakemont, agreed.
“I like how we get all of this equipment, so in PE class, we can do more things than we used to be able to do,’’ she said.
Sena doesn’t have a blender bike, but he doesn’t need any more ideas — or more ways to be active. He estimated he puts in about 2½ hours a day in on-the-go time, whether that is being part of Cypress Creek’s golf team, dancing as part of the school’s music theater program, his involvement in the choir or running on his own.
Sena admits to playing video games, just not that much.
Marybelle Doe, Sena’s mother, said Play 60 has given her son the confidence to speak in front of groups and work on team-building to accomplish goals.
“These are skills you don’t get on a daily basis or you get in a class,’’ Doe said. “It’s not textbook.’’
Sena, a sophomore with aspirations to be a policychange maker, already is altering the landscape at his south Orlando high school.
He helped start a vegetable and herb garden and has received a grant to begin a recycling program.
“Most kids don’t understand where herbs come from, how they taste or what type of herb they’re tasting,’’ Sena said.
Sena’s enthusiasm is hard to miss, as is his frequent smile and long hair. He claims to have not cut his long, wavy dark locks, which reach the middle of his back, in 11 years — or back when he did not know what thyme was.
And wasn’t so sage, wise beyond his years.
“Last year, we had an autistic boy in the choir,’’ Cypress Creek teacher Kyle Tolar said. “Bobby made it a point to really befriend him, to know him and even hung out with him outside of school, just because he didn’t have many friends. “He’s a class-act guy.’’ Barack and Michelle Obama probably thought so when Sena met them at a White House dinner in 2015. Sena has taken a selfie with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and met former Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu, his favorite pro football player.
Play 60 is not about photo opportunities, though. It has got a larger goal — to help shrink childhood obesity.
In the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, about 12.7 million children ages 2-19 fall in that category.
“There is a lot of work left to be done, and we have seen positive trends in obesity,’’ Isaacson said. “The problem has not been solved.’’
Good thing problem solvers such as Sena, Batten and others are around.