Whitley helps youth programs
Commanders receiver aims to build the area’s players, improve all teams
During his senior season at Roosevelt in 2012, Carl Whitley was the leading receiver on the most successful Rough Riders team of the past 15 years. Behind his 948 yards and 10 touchdowns, Roosevelt finished 9-3, knocked out of the playoffs in the second round.
Whitley said he envisions better — not just for Roosevelt, but for all the San Antonio-area teams that rarely make deep playoff runs.
After two seasons at Cisco College and three years at Abilene Christian, Whitley returned home to San Antonio and started working with local nonprofit GAS Elite to provide coaching to young athletes. At the same time, Whitley continued improving his own game, earning a roster spot on the Alliance of American Football’s San Antonio Commanders, who are holding training camp this month in preparation for their inaugural season opener Feb. 9.
“My goal is to bring these kids into real football at young ages,” Whitley said. “The guys we wind up playing later on, they’ve been getting molded from real young. If you can get in there with some guys and build it, family and football and a community around it, we’ll be able to get past that next level and bring some state cham-
pionships back here.”
His experience with GAS Elite inspired Whitely to want to start his own organization, and he said he’s begun laying the groundwork on the business side.
He wants his team to be called the First-Class Elite Chiefs and compete in the Texas Select Youth Football League.
“Even though I've been playing football, I was coaching kids and training,” Whitley said. “I was taking kids to games, putting them in sports, just helping out, trying to do what I can. That's how I had the idea I'm going to start my own league next year and build off that. Whether I'm playing or not, I've still got that. Just being around the game and build people up.“
Sterling Herron, the owner of GAS Elite, said the program fielded a team for the first time last season after previously serving as a training organization. The team competed in the North American Junior Independent Football Federation in San Antonio, with players paying only a deposit on equipment to participate, Herron said.
Whitley was an assistant coach on the GAS Elite U-10 team.
“Carl is pretty good with the kids,” Herron said. “We’re a new organization, so each team maybe has four to five coaches, so we have to train them at basically everything.”
Herron said Whitley traveled the area to assist GAS Elite’s afterschool programs, which focus on skills training. Whitley was also involved in GAS Elite’s fundraising efforts, including water sales during football season.
GAS Elite’s goal is to help athletes earn college scholarships, and Herron said many kids in the program are underprivileged and might have no other way to achieve a college education. He said he was glad Whitley chose to work with GAS Elite rather than a more established organization.
“He easily could’ve left and went to coach anybody else, and they would’ve let him coach because of his resume,” Herron said. “But he chose to stay with us. We’re all from the same area, so I guess that probably has a lot to do with it, since we are from the same community.”
After redshirting during the 2016 season due to an ACL injury, Whitley caught 31 passes for 307 yards and five touchdowns as a redshirt senior at Abilene Christian in 2017. He was not invited to the NFL scouting combine and went undrafted, but he showed enough during a workout in front of scouts at Abilene Christian to earn an invite to rookie camp with the New Orleans Saints.
When nothing materialized, he participated in the AAF combine and was offered a contract to play for the Commanders.
“You come through a time where it’s like, ‘Maybe I didn’t get to show this. Maybe I didn’t get to show that,’ ” Whitley said. “Another opportunity comes, and, ‘Boom. Let’s see what you can do.’ ”
The Commanders have 11 wide receivers on their roster and need to trim from 75 players to 52 by the end of training camp.
“I really like Carl,” Commanders coach Mike Riley said. “He is really tough and tough-minded. I think he has a great ability to bend his hips and come out of a break, and I think he makes plays.”