Rebecca Neumann
Staff Writer
When Mandy Stewart drove up from Aledo with her family to attend the Inaugural Jason Witten Football Camp last weekend, she expected a normal football camp for her son Justin, 8. However, what she and her family got was a two day program taught by 30 of the area’s top high school coaches and the Cowboys tight end.
“Justin really likes football,” Stewart said. “[We came because] it’s really important to develop different talents and cultivate dreams early on. Plus, I’m a fan of Witten. He’s been really good with the kids. I didn’t expect him to be so hands on. [With this camp] you really get what you pay for.”
Coppell High School’s Buddy Echols Field played host to the camp from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. 300 hundred kids between the ages of 7 and 14 gathered to learn football techniques.
Though this was his first in Texas, Witten has hosted football camps for eight years in his home state of Tennessee. He believes it is important for kids to realize their potential and gain strong role models.
“Obviously, it’s fun to teach the kids football stuff,” Witten said. “But hopefully they walk away from [the camp] realizing that whatever they want to do they can accomplish by working hard and believing in their dreams. Just interacting with other kids, whether they know them yet or not, is a great experience. I didn’t have an NFL player [to teach me]. I just always went to little camps if I could.”
Cowboys linebacker Bobby Carpenter lives in Coppell and came to Witten’s camp as a guest and spoke to the kids about pursuing their dreams. Carpenter, whose father was a football coach in his home state of Ohio, has always been around football and enjoyed getting to speak to the young campers about it.
“Kids never run out of energy,” he said. “They always want to play. I used to attend camps like this all the time, every camp I could get into and I remember how important it was for me. Texas is a great state for high school sports, so these kids just need to enjoy it.”
Witten and his wife started the Support Community Overcome Rebuild Educate (SCORE) Foundation to give back to kids affected by domestic violence by providing them with strong male role models. They host a camp in Tennessee every year where more than 1,000 kids attend the one-day, non-profit event. With his most recent camp in Coppell, almost 100 campers came on scholarships from the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Dallas.
When Witten was not signing autographs or taking pictures, he was running drills with and offering words of encouragement to campers. He personally shook every camper’s hand and brought more than 60 prizes, including signed jersies, to give out.
“We have such a huge platform,” he said. “All professional athletes, not just football players. We really owe it to society and our communities to give back and take advantage of that platform. That’s what I’m trying to do here today.”
For more information about Jason Witten or the SCORE Foundation, visit: http://www.jasonwitten82.com/
