Reggie Williams : Super Bowls Are Nothing Compared to the Challenge of the Inner Cities

Four years ago, the National Football League choose Miami as the site of its annual mega-ritual, the Super Bowl. Just days before the game was played, a Miami policeman shot and killed an African-American motorcyclist, and the Overtown section of the city exploded in flames. The NFL was widely criticized for simply going on with the proceedings and doing next to nothing to help cool the tensions in the city.

Fast-forward to 1993. This time, the Super Bowl site is Los Angeles. The city is still trying to recover from its own bout with civil unrest. But this time the NFL has a plan.

It’s called Youth Education Town, and it’s an ambitious project--a multi-purpose education and recreation center to be built in South-Central Los Angeles. The league has earned the support of a wide variety of civic leaders, major corporations and educators for its proposal. Country singer Garth Brooks held a concert last week to raise money for it. Behind the effort is a man named Reggie Williams, 38, a one-time Cincinnati city councilman, Dartmouth graduate and, for 14 years, starting linebacker for the NFL Cincinnati Bengals.

Williams played in the 1989 Super Bowl in Miami--his team was defeated by the San Francisco 49ers. But what he remembers most about that time is not the pain of the loss, but the ache of seeing a community go up in flames. Williams was recruited by the NFL last fall to develop a philanthropic project for Los Angeles, and while it took him a while to figure out what form it should take, from the beginning he knew it would be targeted to children, and focus on education.

Education is important to Williams. He grew up hearing-impaired and credits an elementary-school teacher with introducing him to the joy of reading--”You didn’t have to hear, you didn’t have to speak, it was the perfect conduit for me to become very academically inspired.” So inspired was he that he eventually went to Dartmouth, not on a football scholarship, but on an academic one.

Williams was appointed to fill a vacant seat on the Cincinnati City Council in 1988. The next year, he successfully stood for election. Since taking on this latest challenge for the NFL, Williams has spent most of his time in Los Angeles, developing the plans for Youth Education Town, a place he envisions as an island a tranquillity for kids growing up in often-troubled South-Central.

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Question: Tell me about your experience during the 1989 Super Bowl. Was that memory--of the riots in Miami--instrumental in your decision to take on this NFL program in Los Angeles?

Answer: Miami. It’s difficult to reflect on it in a singular fashion because there were so many things going on. My team was in the Super Bowl, following a losing season the year before. I had been appointed to a City Council member’s position in Cincinnati. We were coming from the gray of Cincinnati into the blue, balmy skies of Miami and everything just seemed to be wonderful.

We were in our hotel for a couple of days and--boom. Riots. Outside our hotel windows we could see the fires raging in Overtown. I grew up in Flint, and I remember Detroit burning after Martin Luther King was killed. That type of frustration erupting on the streets, from a single catalyst, was an all-too vivid memory. And here I was: More than just a player, I was also an elected official. I called the mayor’s office there, asking if there was something I could do, something the team could do. But I never got a call back. I remember thinking that we could have done something--anything--even if it was only symbolic, to help calm the situation.

Q: How did the NFL approach you about doing something for Los Angeles, and what Steve Proffitt is a producer for Fox News and contributor to National Public Radio. He interviewed Reggie Williams at the NFL Super Bowl offices at the Century Plaza Hotel.made them interested in getting involved in a charitable project in South-Central?

A: Officials at the NFL had been discussing a philanthropic effort in connection with the Super Bowl even before the outburst in April. But nothing had really been done to propel it along. Last October, the league asked me to prepare a comprehensive strategy for the NFL community presence in Los Angeles. That gave me just three months to do the job. My acceptance was contingent on doing something that really had some meaning. It wasn’t going to be a panacea of any nature. It wasn’t intended to solve all the problems of the city. But it was an opportunity to spearhead a positive social effort on behalf of a game that I am really passionate about.

Q: Tell me what you’ve accomplished in those three months. What have you put into motion?

A: I’m a classic all-or-nothing guy. Nothing is done until it’s all done. That said, we expect to have Youth Education Town constructed and open in 90 days. The United Way of Greater Los Angeles will play a significant role, and this place will be successful. It will be managed by the Watts-Willowbrook Boys & Girls Club. We’re getting equipment from big corporations like Sony and Digital Computer.

It’s going to be a safe haven for kids. It will be a place for those who need a quiet space after school or on weekends--they will have a quiet, safe place to study. If they need a desk, or a computer, if they need a tool for academic enrichment--Youth Education Town is going to have it. It’s going to have an outdoor recreation surface, where some creative activities will take place. It’s going to have a physical-conditioning room, where some of the rudiments of training for an attitude will take place, where kids can get some immediate gratification based purely on their own efforts.

But the heart and soul will be the library. It’s going to have books to complement the curriculum of the local schools. There will be computers, CD players for interactive software, audio and video equipment and a video library. There will be a computer lab so that anyone--including myself--who needs to be educated on this tool of the 21st Century can learn those skills. There will be a photographic darkroom, so that kids can develop their personal creativity.

Of course, that’s just bricks and mortar. The lifeblood is going to be the people who will be involved. That’s folks like Dr. Herb Carter (president of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles), probably one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met in terms of his ability to achieve consensus among a group of people.

Q: How many kids will the facility serve?

A: Our goal is about 1,000. The focus will be on adolescents. There are some programs for younger and older kids, but the adolescents don’t have much.

It’s going to be at the Gateway Plaza, which is at the corner of Rosecrans Avenue and Central Avenue. Some people might remember the location as where that Taco Bell burned completely to the ground, and they rebuilt it in 48 hours. We have the money to build it and operate it for five years. The bills are paid. So we know we are going to be there that long.

If you believe that education is part of the solution, then you have to be very creative in the way you bring educational tools to a community. The schools themselves have borne most of the responsibility for providing those academic tools, and the schools sometimes are not that safe. Unfortunately, there are also too many young people who have already dropped out of the system. There has to be a creative net put there to help them find their way back. I think Youth Education Town will be a step in that direction.

Q: You talk about the importance of a safe haven, but YET is going to be built in somebody’s ‘hood, on somebody’s turf. How do you make it, and keep it safe?

A: My hope is that this facility will be a part of the LAPD’s community-based policing program. It’s my hope that on the programmatic menu there will be people who work in the area of gang violence and gang recruitment. It’s my hope that collaborations with organizations like the Watts Health Foundation--which has been recognized as a gang-free zone--will provide a similar sort of recognition for Youth Education Town.

But there won’t be bars to keep people out. It’s not designed to keep anybody out. Membership will be a buck--one dollar. We will have an environment that will be hospitable, and respectful of all individuals--regardless of their race, their gender or politics. All they have to do is convince us that they are there to learn, and they will be welcome.

Q: What do the kids say when you tell them about this plan?

A: Most of the kids are really excited. They want to work there. You see, we’re going to have a storefront. And the young people will have a key voice in what will be sold in the Youth Education Town store. And right behind the store is going to be a classroom where retailing and other job-related skills are going to be taught.

Q: Why is the NFL committed to this?

A: The NFL recognizes the responsibility professional athletes have to their communities. The business of the National Football League is to put a profitable product on the field. But it takes committed people to try and take some of those profits and invest them back into the community--and there are people in the NFL who have that commitment. Youth Education Town is the classic example of throwing down an anchor somewhere. We think it will generate some degree of hope. Sports is amazing in that it allows you to put your differences aside to fight for a common goal. And there are so many athletes who have overcome so much individual adversity to find success. We can use those athletes and those skills to educate our kids.

Q: Is Youth Education Town a pilot project? If it works, will the NFL try it in other cities?

A: I would love to speculate on where this could go and think about NFL Youth Education Towns all over the globe. But as a player, I know you have to be focused on the job at hand. There are plenty of challenges right outside the door. And the kids are really going to be the ones to determine whether this facility will be a success. It’s going to be the young people who will say, “Yes, this is what I need.”

Q: Obviously, the center will have an impact on the 1,000 kids who use it, but what about beyond that? What’s your hope?

A: I honestly believe that the old adage, “If we can just save one kid, then we’ve been successful,” is antiquated. We’ve got to start saving more than just one kid. We have to start being a whole lot more aggressive than that. There’s more black and Hispanic kids in prison than there are on college campuses. If nothing else, I think Youth Education Town will be a far more cost-effective option.

Q: Where does your social conscience come from?

A: I think from my parents, who worked really hard to raise three boys. Also from Thurgood Marshall--from very early in my life, he was one of my heroes. Maybe it was because the Brown vs. Board of Education decision came down in 1954, and I was born in 1954. I started reading as a kid, and I read about how so many people had fought and sacrificed just so I could be in the public schools.

I have three boys--a 10-year-old, an 8-year-old and a brand new 6-week-old baby. In a selfish way, I hope that my work will somehow assist them. Because my 10 year-old is already seeing raw bigotry. He’s seen stupid violence. Now I’ve got a newborn who has a whole world to discover. Am I naive enough to suspect that he won’t know the same? No. Am I going to try to forestall it, or give him some positive options? You better believe it. So that’s a big part of what motivates me.

Q: What can someone living in the San Fernando Valley, or in Glendale, or in Crenshaw do to make sure that Youth Education Town becomes a success?

A: In the three months I have been here, I haven’t had the chance to extend an invitation to get involved to as many people as I’d like to. I appreciate this opportunity to do so. Volunteerism is an important part of patriotism, and there are 1,000 ways people can get involved. There’s no such thing as a bad idea, and we are open--ready to listen to any kind of creative thinking that can help us help these young people.