Football Southern Conference

Southern Conference Holds Annual Football Rouser

Eighteen SoCon football
players visited The Children's Hospital
in Greenville, SC on July 29.
Child life specialist
Jamie Gibson briefs the
players on what to expect.
Georgia Southern's
Charles Clarke gives
Sydney a football.
GSU's Clarke, ETSU's
Brandon Calton and Cecil Moore,
Wofford's Nathan Fuqua
and VMI's Matt Kluk
hang out with 18-month old Sydney.
VMI's Matt Kluk
towers over Sydney
Chattanooga's Ryan McCann
and Josh Cain visit
with 10 year-old Daniel
Southern Conference football players, coaches and media met at the Embassy Suites Verdae Green in Greenville, SC, for the annual SoCon Football Rouser. Included in the event was a trip for 18 football players to the Greenville Children's Hospital. Below is a look inside the visit for these athletes.

The Large and Small of Football
By: Ken Burger, The Post and Courier

GREENVILLE-They looked so large as they walked into the oncology ward
in their football jerseys, holding bags of gifts for the children who looked
so small by comparison.
They had been prepped by hospital staff on what they should and should
not say to these kids who are living the nightmare of cancer.
"One of the things you don't say to them is 'we hope you get well
soon,' " the staffer at Greenville Memorial Hospital told the players.
"Because they aren't."
That sent a chill through some of the 18 Southern Conference football
players making their first such hospital visit. In today's world, it may
seem like a hokey public relations gimmick to have these college players
visit sick kids and give them little footballs and pose for pictures.
But until you actually see it, you can't understand the impact it has
on the kids and their parents.
Not to mention the players.

TOUGH GUYS
Lamar Sales, an outside linebacker for The Citadel, and his teammate
Jared Perdue, a left tackle for the Bulldogs, were two of the players who
volunteered to visit oncology.
It's a little tougher than talking to kids with broken arms and legs.
It hits a little harder, a little deeper than you think.
Both are big boys who play a tough game. But they seemed to shrink in
size when they met these kids who were in a fight much tougher than any they
will ever see on the field.
As they went through meeting the kids, they sat in tiny chairs and drew
pictures with 2-year-old Michaela. They posed for a picture with 6-year-old
Blake, whose hair had lost the battle with chemotherapy.
They talked to Shamika, who was hooked up to an IV, and visited quietly
with Sarah, who was watching TV with her mom. At each stop they have with
them token gifts and smiles and nods of encouragement.
But there is no way any of us can feel what these families are going
through. When the boys were playing with Blake, making her smile and giggle,
her grandmother sat at the back of the room with tears in her eyes.
"This means more than they know," she said quietly.

NO PITY
When the visit was over, the players boarded a bus that was waiting to
take them back to the world where people are healthy and strong and
confident that tomorrow will arrive right on schedule. But they were not the
same guys who walked in an hour before. There was a touch of humility in the
air.
"It was so interesting to see how their parents handle all this,"
Perdue said as he left the oncology ward. "I really wish we could spend more
time with them. They are really neat kids."
That's the way most of the players felt when the visit was over.
Although they are about to enter two-a-day practices in the broiling sun,
they garnered an appreciation of how much tougher life, and death, can be.
"The entire experience was breathtaking," said Sales. "These kids know
exactly what's going on. They don't want anybody to pity them.
"They are such strong little kids. They are stronger than we are. It
makes you realize you've got it easy."
Which means this trip was a success. For the little kids as well as the
big kids.


SoCon stars make kids smile
By David Uchiyama
Staff Writer

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Five-year-old Jacob Hall has big plans for the day he's released from Greenville Memorial Hospital.

"I'm going to play soccer, basketball, baseball... and oh yeah, football too," Jake said through a plastic football helmet he grabbed out of a toy bin. "Football is my favorite."

At least it was for a few minutes Monday morning after 18 Southern Conference football players attending the SoCon Rouser visited the school-age ward of the children's hospital. Six players went to the oncology unit.

The players all brought gifts for the children: cup holders, fans, t-shirts, plastic footballs, pom-poms and water bottles. UTC quarterback Ryan McCann smiled as he watched Cheyenne Painter look with amazement at a room full of 200-pound-plus guys in colorful jerseys.

"Here, I have something for you," said McCann before he leaned over and handed her a blue and yellow pom-pom. She could barely say "Thank you."

"Cheyenne is very used to the routine of the hospital," child life specialist Jamie Gibson said. "This is a nice break from that and I think
she'll be more active this afternoon."

As the other 10 players moved on to different rooms, McCann and UTC linebacker Josh Cain stopped and watched 10-year-old Daniel Moore play a motocross racing video game.

"He's pretty good," Cain said. "I think he's in first place." Wofford fullback J. R. McNair and a few other players opted to visit the cancer ward where the mood wasn't as bright. Most of the children in the oncology unit are very ill, and some are terminal -- a scientific, yet depressing, word for "not going to get better."

On Monday though, Blake was full of life despite losing most of her hair to chemotherapy. She wanted to play doctor and McNair was her patient. She sax McNair in a chair, pretended to put a needle in his left forearm then taped the end of an IV to his arm.

"I was holding the water thing and after a while I felt some of it on my arm," McNair said. "I told her I wanted a band-aid, so she gave me one.
Everything was real except they took the needle out of the IV.

"When we were leaving the nurse told me it was good for her to do that because it gave her a chance to be in control and doing things instead of having something done to her."

The visit also gave nurses a break from their routine and an afternoon where the kids will smile.

"The kids are usually more active and will come out of their rooms," nurse Kristi Abercrombie said. "They like to show off to their friends what they got and compare their stories. The visit definitely boosts morale."