Talking NFL

With some serious slow time hitting the league, I took a moment to browse through the archives of my site. Conclusion? To paraphrase Rick Pitino, “All this negativity that’s in this blog sucks!” Besides, my parents just yelled at me for the Tom Brady/Trojan Man bit, and subsequently threatened to raise my rent if I keep going with such ‘controversial’ material…

So with that said, let’s take a look at one of the brighter stories in pro football…the NFL USO Tour. As NFL.com reports:

The NFL is continuing this offseason its legacy of more than 40 years of sending players overseas to visit with U.S. troops. The NFL’s Director of Community Affairs, David Krichavsky, is accompanying four NFL players — Atlanta Falcons tight end Alge Crumpler, Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Shelton Quarles, Kansas City Chiefs guard Will Shields, and New England Patriots tight end Benjamin Watson — on a 12-day USO tour to U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So these guys are spending their down time voluntarily flying into & touring these war-torn countries in order to spread good cheer amongst the troops. And when it comes down to it, you know that these are the celebrities our soldiers want to meet. Hey, Kathy Griffin is funny and all (well, to some people), but you know these guys were raised on football games and are getting the greatest kick out of meeting their gridiron heroes. Check out this story from Ben Watson:

Ben Watson…told us of a young soldier he had met at one our stops in Iraq who grew up just outside Boston and was a lifelong Patriots fan. This soldier had e-mailed a picture that he took with Ben to his parents back home. The soldier’s parents in turn forwarded the e-mail to the Patriots with a note saying that their son’s e-mail, in which he told of meeting Ben, was the single most positive piece of communication they had received from their son since he had been deployed.

“It was a good thing that the Patriots forwarded that e-mail from the kid’s parents along to me,” Ben confided to me later. “I was starting to get tired, but that e-mail gave me a new source of energy. It reminded me of why I decided to come all the way out here.”

There’s tons of more good stuff over at NFL.com, where they’re keeping a daily blog entry to cover the player’s visit. Thanks, guys, and even more thanks to our troops over in harm’s way.

NFL, USO, Tour, Alge Crumpler, Shelton Quarles, Will Shields, Ben Watson, support out troops