The Buchtel community shows support as Cleveland Browns put on youth football clinic

AKRON, Ohio – When Buchtel athletic director and head football coach Bryan Williams sends out the bat signal to the 1040 community, they show up in droves.

It was no different on Wednesday, as Buchtel and the Cleveland Browns combined to put on a free “Browns Legends Clinic” for kids ages 8-14 at Buchtel’s Tim Flossie Field, where more than 125 kids from the community came out to learn football drills from Williams, his coaching staff and players.

“This was a good turnout,” Browns manager of youth football Romie Graham said. “That's a credit to coach Williams and his staff for getting the word out. I think they did a great job.”

As for Williams, a 2005 graduate of Buchtel, it’s all about letting the community know that the school and the staff are there for them when they need it.

“This may change a lot (of things) moving forward because now our community understands that we're here for them and we can have an outstanding camp just like this one,” Williams said. “This is wonderful for our community and we are just going to continue to build off that.”

Buchtel’s synthetic turf field is one of 14 that the Browns have donated since 2016 in Northeast Ohio and Toledo as part of their Browns Give Back campaign started by team owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam and the Haslam Sports Group, which also involves Browns executive vice president JW Johnson and his wife, Whitney Haslam Johnson. The clinic, which will be held every year, is a way for the Browns to give back to the communities that have received these fields.

"It started in 2016 when Jimmy and Dee decided that they wanted to give back to the communities, so the Johnson and Haslam families decided that they want to install turf fields in low-income communities,” Graham said. “We want to show that we're involved and that we give outside of the school and we give outside of the football season, so we offer free camps during the summer.”

Part of each camp is also the involvement of a former Browns player. For this camp, it was linebacker Frank Stams, who played for the Browns from 1992-1995. He is from Akron and played at St. Vincent-St. Mary. But before that, his father Frank was a unit principal at Buchtel.

“I feel a little part of this football field,” Stams told the kids on Wednesday. “Back in 1973, my father was a principal at this school, and I used to come out and watch the games on Saturday afternoons for a number of years here, so I really appreciate what the Cleveland Browns have done.”

Stams, who played for head coach Lou Holtz at Notre Dame where he was an All-American and a national champion, shared a pearl of wisdom about success with the kids that his old coach told him back in the mid-1980s. He said three things you have to do are show up, show up with a plan, and execute said plan.

“(Holtz) said if you show up, that’s 80 percent of life and if you show up with a plan, you’re up to 85 percent as far as success rate,” Stams said. “You show up, you show up with a plan and you execute that plan, you’re light years ahead of everybody else.”

“Show up on the field and show up in school and you will be successful in life.”

And showing up is what the 1040 – called that because 1040 Copley Road is the school’s address – always seems to do, whether it be at football games as the Griffins went to the regional semifinals this past season, the state championship run by the boys basketball team this winter or a free kids camp on a beautiful day in the second week of June.

Williams downplayed the part his football team’s success had last season in building community support saying it was a “small portion” and instead insisted that it is all about the people in the neighborhood.

“It's the people that are in the community,” Williams said. “The 10 to 20 people that speak, they speak loud. And once they speak loud, they get 20 to 40 more people to build off of what we're trying to accomplish here. And we just want to continue this train smoke, let people know we're here to stay and we're going to continue to do whatever we need to get everybody’s support.”

As evidenced by the turnout on Wednesday, that message seems to have been heard loud and clear in the 1040.

The Buchtel community shows support as Cleveland Browns put on youth football clinic

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