NFL pro Adrian Peterson holds free football camp

Star running back says coaching young players is not just giving back, but a family tradition

Local kids recently got a chance to train with a Georgia Southern and NFL football pro thanks to a joint effort of the Pierce County Rec Department and former Chicago Bears running back Adrian Peterson.

This was Peterson’s third year coming to Pierce to offer his free football clinic and the 27 kids present looked fully engaged in a series of high-energy drills and exercizes under his watchful eye. “We do really basic drills, so the kids can remember and do them when they go back home,” says Peterson.

An alumnus of Georgia Southern, Peterson won the 1999 Walter Payton Award, the first sophomore in history to win the I-AA division honor. A back-to-back FCS national champion in 1999 and 2o00, Peterson was also a two-time Southern Conference Offensive Player of the Year, before moving on to a seven year career with the Chicago Bears.

When asked what he hoped the kids present took away from the special training session, Peterson said, “Speed, agility, strength and conditioning, but most of all, hard work pays off.”

Peterson would definitely know something about hard work overcoming obstacles. With his easy smile and casually confident manner, one might not suspect Peterson has had to cope with a speech impediment in his youth.

An author as well as an athlete, Peterson wrote Don’t Dis My Ability, the story of his struggle with his speech impediment and other challenges in his life. “His book was how I first became aware of him,” says Rec Dept. Director Maureen Brown. “Once I found out more about him and his football camp clinic I knew we had to get him down here for the kids. More parents should take advantage of this, because it’s free.”

But his special football camp wasn’t the first time Peterson had come to Pierce County. From a young student shy about speaking in front of his classmates in Florida, Peterson came to Georgia in 2017 as keynote speaker for the Pierce County Sports Hall of Fame’s inaugural banquet held at the Okefenokee Country Club.

Speaking engagement or coaching, Peterson seems to keep coming back to Pierce. The former running back’s next stop after Blackshear was in Hinesville, on a course of coaching taking him throughout Georgia and South Carolina with the occasional visit back up to Chicago. “My dad was a youth football coach, so it’s kind of a family tradition,” says Peterson. “And that’s why I love doing this.”