If You Can’t Wait for Football Season…

Come check out the Pros & Joes Celebrity Football Game! On Sunday, July 27, 2008 several NFL players and college greats will compete against a team of local community leaders and average “Joes”. The game starts at 7pm but it is prefaced by a Family Fun Fest starting at 4pm. This event benefits the Danville Boys and Girls Clubs. It’s part of the Kids & Pros Youth Football Experience which kicks off their football camp here the next day.

Here’s the 2008 Celebrity Lineup.

• Buddy Curry (Atlanta Falcons)
• Bobby Butler (Atlanta Falcons)
• Kenny Lewis (NY Jets)
• Ferrell Edmunds (Miami Dolphins)
• Ken Oxendine (Atlanta Falcons)
• Jeremy Phillips (Atlanta Falcons & St. Louis Rams)

Athletic Excellence Just Around the Corner

Here’s a little known fact about the Dan River Region. The town of Chatham is home to a very prestigious preparatory school called Hargrave Military Academy. Today I had the pleasure of meeting their Post-Graduate football coach, Robert Prunty. Coach Prunty took some time to explain the Post-Graduate program to me. It is a program designed to give extra personal, educational, and athletic development to athletes before they enter college. Their players keep all their years of college playing eligibility while at the same time competing against college level teams and taking classes to prepare them for college.

This one year program has a long list of great players who have gone on to play in college and many in the NFL as well. Several of them were first round draft picks. (One of whom plays for my favorite team, Carlos Rogers of the Washington Redskins.) The school website also tells of many other prominent alumni who have graduated from Hargrave. There are U.S. Congressmen, CEO’s of major companies, high ranking military officers and public service leaders to name a few. Hargrave is clearly committed to excellence in all aspects of life. Here’s a quote from their website:

Since 1909, Hargrave has cared for the development of young men guided by these concepts. While our campus has grown and evolved, the caring and earnest desire to see young people better themselves remains the same. We do not promise miracles. Rather, Hargrave prides itself on the small, often hard-won achievements found within each graduate.

“Stong in Mind. Strong in Body.” That’s their school motto and it certainly appears that they’re living up to it.