By JED LOCKETT
BLUEFIELD, Va. — Former Graham High School standout and current New York Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw made his first public appearance in Bluefield since the end of the 2008 NFL season on Saturday.
Bradshaw was at Graham High School to promote his upcoming football camp that will take place from July 13-15 at Graham High School.
The running back was just glad to be back in Bluefield.
“It always feels great, man,” Bradshaw said. “My family’s here. I spent my whole life here growing up and it’s always lovely to come back and see the old home.”
Bradshaw took some time out of his schedule to talk about his upcoming football camp. He wanted to do it as part of an effort to give back to the place where he grew up.
“Just to give back, man,” he said. “When I was younger, I never had NFL players coming and do a camp around here. We rarely had anybody go to the NFL from this area. So it was kind of hard for kids my age to...get that advantage and have a camp.
“So I’d like to come back and give back to little kids and help my community as much as I can. It’s always a good thing.”
Bradshaw believed that one of the best ways he could give back to the Bluefield area was by holding a football camp for kids. He is proud that because of his status as an NFL player and Super Bowl champion that he can put his name on the event to make it more meaningful.
“It’s something that I wanted to do first off just to have a football camp and just (to) put the camp under your name, it’s an accomplishment,” Bradshaw said.
“Of course, my family they always want me to come back and give back to this community anyway. So that’s always a good thing. To have a camp, it always helps.”
Before Saturday, 63 participants had already registered for the three-day camp. Three more registered before the running back appeared at the high school.
“I didn’t even know,” Bradshaw said when told the numbers. “That’s amazing being from this area, you’d think it’d be a smaller camp. We’ll just have to prepare for a bigger camp and hopefully all the kids come out and I would like everybody to come out and support them.”
Bradshaw still remembers the time he spent playing youth football in Bluefield. That is why he wanted to donate the proceeds to the Bluefield, Virginia Little League.
“I came up with the little league in this area,” he said. “And there’s always something that the little league needs or there’s something that you can always help them with.
“And I just chose to give back to them just because they need some help with plenty of different things. So it’s always a good thing I can help with them.”
He does not mind working with younger players. In fact, he relishes the opportunity.
“I love kids,” Bradshaw said. “I have kids myself, so it’s always a good thing to give back to the kids and be able to help the younger guys in this area.”
Bradshaw said that teammates, defensive end Robert Henderson and defensive back Aaron Ross, would likely join him and there was a possibility that defensive lineman Chris Canty would also make the trip.
One thing is for sure. Bradshaw will be there.
“I’ll be here,” he said. “I’m ready to go. It’ll be like I’m coming out for practice, you know.”
Even though he won a Super Bowl early last year and received numerous honors from the town of Bluefield, Va., Bradshaw still has yet to realize the impact he has had on the area. That is partly because he feels like he can make a bigger impact on and off the field.
“I don’t think it really has sunk in because I realize there’s only so much I can do on the gridiron to what I haven’t done so far,” Bradshaw said. “I feel I can do 10 times more and I think I can give back 10 times more to the community once I get situated in the NFL and get to where I want to be.
“But like I said, it hasn’t sunk in because I know there’s so much more I know I can do accomplishment-wise in the NFL and more to give back to the community.”
Bradshaw plans on his career getting bigger and better. He has similar plans for his football camp.
“We plan on making it bigger every year,” Bradshaw said. “Hopefully it’ll attract more people every year and more players here every year and make the camp probably an annual thing.
“I want to do something like Heath Miller and Thomas Jones, just try to get them to this area and go to their area and have different camps in the Virginia area and try to help out this area.”
— Contact Jed Lockett
at jlockett@bdtonline.com
