While the city of Detroit is buzzing with excitement for the upcoming NFL Draft, there is one organization that works with young athletes to get them ready for the big leagues. Shawn H. Wilson, president and CEO of Boys and Girls Club of Southeastern Michigan, and Jerome Bettis, Super Bowl champion, Professional Football Hall of Famer, and founder of Bus Stops Here Foundation, appeared on “Live in The D” to talk about the organization.
With the draft coming up, it’s a great time for a sports conference. “3C Sports is the umbrella that Boys and Girls Club runs all of our youth sports programs through, and it was established in 2021 because what we saw was that youth sports was really on the decline,” Wilson said.
With this, they wanted to take the opportunity to bring young players, coaches, and parents together to talk about returning the game back to the kids within a healthy community.
“It’s important to me because football was the vehicle that I was able to use to go to college, to get an education, and then find an incredible career that I was really good at,” Bettis said when talking about his involvement within the conference and organization. “Our goal is to really inspire and impact one kid at a time because I was one of those kids that was impacted,” he said.
“We try to bring the family back into that youth sports role and everybody has a role to play in all of this whether it’s coaches, parents, or the kids,” Bettis said. While this is being promoted, their hope is to show what’s need to be done, and then, “Kids get the real benefit of the actual sport.”
The conference begins Wednesday and goes through Friday. There will be panels, panelists, and some guests like Barry Sanders, Coach Bryan Kelly, Calvin Johnson, and many more.
To learn more about the event, watch the video above.