College Football: Senior Bowl players provide special night for area youth football players
Only 10 years or so ago, Alabama offensive guard Emil Ekiyor Jr. was just like so many of the youth football kids now running around on this night at the University of West Florida’s Pen-Air Field.
“I looked up to guys who played college ball and possibly going to the NFL and I know it meant the world to me growing up,” Ekiyor said, nodding towards the group of Pensacola area kids.
That’s why it was so relatable.
Ekiyor, one of the Crimson Tide’s best offensive linemen the past three seasons, a first-team All-SEC selection in 2022, was among the Reese’s Senior Bowl players training at Andrews Institute and part of a special, free clinic at UWF on Jan. 25 for area kids involved in the NFL Flag Pensacola youth program.
Joined by 15 players from UWF’s football team, they spent two hours together encouraging, teaching, wowing and interacting with kids as young as five and 6-years old.
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“It is awesome,” said Ekiyor, a 6-foot-3, 307 pound lineman from Indianapolis, who is projected to be a second day selection in the NFL draft. “Just using the platform we have to be able to give back to the community is always really important and something I pride myself in doing.
“So, it’s awesome to come here (at UWF) and give back to some of these kids and help up out the community while I am down here in Pensacola.”
This is the fourth consecutive year the Reese’s Senior Bowl has helped organize a youth football clinic in Pensacola. The first two years, the event as at Blue Wahoos Stadium. A large contingent of players in the Feb. 4 game at South Alabama’s Hancock-Whitney Stadium are training at the Exos Athletes Performance facility at Andrews Institute in Gulf Breeze.
“I think our players get as much out of it as the kids,” said Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy. “Right now they are in training mode and it’s stressful for a lot of these guys. There is a lot of anxiety heading into Senior Bowl week.
“It’s a week-long stressful interview process and to come out with the kids (a week before) and let their guard down, I think they see themselves in the kids. They love giving back.
“Our players get to where they are at because of the type of people they are. They have gone through three to five years in college and became great players because they work hard, because they are team players and because they are disciplined.”
When Nagy took over five years ago as Reese’s Senior Bowl director, he saw Pensacola as a nearby market to expand awareness about the game and the week-long events in Mobile.
From that vision, a free clinic has emerged with players who will soon be in the NFL. A year ago, two players who were part of the Senior Bowl clinic at UWF – Cole Strange and Zion Johnson – became first-round draft picks. Strange was the New England Patriots top pick and Johnson was chosen No. 17 overall by the San Diego Chargers.
They were at Pen-Air Field helping bring joy with kids.
“It is pretty unique,” said Nagy, who grew up in Michigan. “I remember when I was a kid, there was a Detriot Lions player who came to my hometown and they did a signing at the mall and I met one player and thought it was the greatest thing.
“He was like the third or fourth best receiver on the Lions, so to get these guys out here is special. One to learn and see it’s attainable. I think in Mobile-Baldwin County we have the most players per-capita of any community percentage wise in the U.S.
“I think it shows this is something tangible to the kids in our communities they see these guys and where they come from and I think helps motivate them.”
One of the more recent, local examples is Pensacola’s Jeremy Reaves, who played in the 2018 Senior Bowl, while Nagy was then a scout for the Seattle Seahawks. Though undrafted, Reaves got an opportunity as a free agent safety with the Washington Commanders and will be in the NFL Pro Bowl on Feb. 5.
“I think anyone from Pensacola who comes across Jeremy and his story, it brings a smile to your face,” Nagy said. “I was trying to get him to Seattle to get him there as an undrafted free agent. I handed the phone to (Seahawks head coach) Pete Carroll at one point and said, ‘Coach, you have to recruit this guy.
So, to see his struggle and success… some guys quit on the dream. And Jeremy has not done that. To see him break through in year four or five and make a Pro Bowl and first team All-Pro, that is incredible.”
A majority of the kids at the recent UWF event were part of the NFL Flag Pensacola program that was started by Derrick Brooks, who rose from youth football in Pensacola to become enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as one of the NFL’s greatest linebackers.
Former high school and college coach David Wilson in Pensacola has managed the NFL Flag Pensacola from its outset.
“It was a vision that Derrick and I talked about when we were in Tampa (working with the former Tampa Bay Storm indoor football team). Derrick wanted to have something going on here for the kids. So, NFL Flag made a lot of sense.
“They treat us well. We have some great coaches. We have some great parents that support kids. To have the UWF players with the Senior Bowl guys is a neat thing. They respect each other. That is amazing.”
Nagy’s son, now a high school senior, often participated in AAU basketball and travel baseball tournaments in Pensacola. It gave Jim Nagy a connection with the community and reinforced the potential Senior Bowl marketing opportunities in Pensacola.
New UWF football coach Kaleb Nobles will join announcer Paul Chestnutt on the radio broadcast of the Senior Bowl on Fox Sports Pensacola.
‘That was the goal when we got here five years ago was to extend our reach,” he said. “This is a Gulf Coast game and really from Gulfport-Biloxi over to Pensacola we are kind of in the middle in Mobile, but we would have been remiss not to try to reach out more to the Pensacola community.
“You all are lucky here to have this facility at UWF. For a Division II university this is an unbelievable facility. It is really a unique thing that the NFL descends on the Gulf Coast the entire NFL comes down and it could be anywhere in the U.S. right in our backyard.”\
Bill Vilona is a retired Pensacola News Journal sports columnist and now senior writer for Pensacola Blue Wahoos. He can be reached at bvilona@bluewahoos.com.
WANT TO GO?
WHAT: 74th annual Reese’s Senior Bowl Game
WHO: NFL prospects nationwide split in National and American squads.
WHEN: Saturday Feb. 4, 1:30 p.m.
WHERE: Hancock Whitney Stadium at the University of South Alabama, Mobile
TV: NFL Network
RADIO: Fox Sports Pensacola (101.1 FM)
TICKETS: Prices range from $15 to $55.
INFO: www.seniorbowl.com.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Senior Bowl players provide special night for area youth football players
