Nearly 150 youth ran, dropped and rolled during a free football camp on Fort Jackson, courtesy of the Army Drill Sergeant Academy and Carolina Panthers defensive lineman Colin Cole.
Cole joined a handful of past and present professional athletes, several drill sergeants in training and local high school coaches at the camp -- called Winning Is Hard Work -- to drill in the message that it takes more than physical conditioning to play football. It also takes brains.
"The Army is near and dear to my heart," said Cole, a 6-foot-2, 325-pound native of Toronto, Ontario, who has close family members in the military or preparing to join the Army.
"This allows the kids to come out here with other kids and get into a team setting … and see all aspects of a football setting," he said Saturday. "It (shows) them the opportunities that are out there."
Besides, he said, it's a good thing to "to get them off the couch and have them run around here for a couple hours."
Of course, it doesn't hurt that Cole is a celebrity.
"This event allows children … to meet NFL players, to listen to their life experiences and talk about things bigger than football," said Darius Lane, director of Fort Jackson's Family Morale Welfare and Recreation's Youth Sports and Fitness program. That opportunity, Lane said, was "the chance of a lifetime."
During the camp, children in various age groups rotated through stations highlighting different drills -- agility, blocking, passing and catching.
Cole also encouraged campers to place getting good education above trying for a career in the National Football League.
Kids should complete high school and college first, he said. Earning a four-year degree should be paramount because only a few make the professional ranks.
"I had always wanted to get into the NFL," Cole said. "But as I was growing up, it was all about getting into college. Very few make it from high school to college to play football, (and) from there it's even slimmer pickings to get into the professional level."
Current and former NFL players who attended the camp with Cole were defensive tackle Kelcy Quarles of Hodges, South Carolina, and the Indianapolis Colts; wide receiver Airese Currie, a Columbia native who played for Clemson University, as well as the Chicago Bears and Seattle Seahawks; offensive lineman Ronald Patrick, a former player at the University of South Carolina and current free agent; wide receiver Marcus Lucas of the Panthers; and former Seattle Seahawk Michael Boulware of Columbia.
Lucas, an undrafted free agent on the Carolina Panthers' practice squad, found the chance to help the youths fulfill their football dreams inspiring.
"It's great to impact these kids' lives," he said. "It gives them inspiration that one day, if they keep pushing, they could get to the level some of these guys are at."
The day wasn't about football stars, said Command Sgt. Maj. Lamont Christian, commandant of the Drill Sergeant Academy -- it was about the campers.
"You can take away the NFL players, and others will fill in," Christian said.
"You can take away the Soldiers helping, and others will step up to help.
"But you take away the kids, there will be no one to fill in.
"It's about the kids."
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