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NFL's Brad Smith blends in with crowd at South Side block party
By Ed Runyan
YOUNGSTOWN
After helping 300 kids learn about football and life at the True Foundation camp that Brad Smith and his wife Rosalynn offered at YSU on Saturday, it was time for some fun that evening.
Smith, a receiver with the Philadelphia Eagles and a Chaney High School graduate, finished the day with hundreds of kids and adults at the Back At One Block Party at the Boys and Girls Club on Oak Hill Avenue.
It was a first-time merger of the Smiths’ seventh annual camp for boys and girls and the annual Back At One conference by his church, Mount Calvary Pentecostal, also on Oak Hill Avenue.
Young people from far away and near played kickball and enjoyed a performance by Christian rapper Yaves Ellis from Columbus.
“Just be able to have fun — that’s what really matters,” said the Rev. James Tyson, Mount Calvary’s youth pastor.
The crowd really responded to the Ellis song “The Facebook Game,” which describes a female who wanted to get in touch with him on Facebook, but what he learned about her didn’t fit with his life.
“She poked me on Facebook, but I ain’t poked back,” the song says, referring to a method of initiating a conversation with someone on the social-media website.
“So when I logged in, she hit me with a chat. I said, ‘Momma, I don’t mean no disrespect, but you looking like an L [loser] and I ain’t trying to catch that.
‘Here’s some advice if you message me, Home Girl — If you’re Eve, I don’t eat from the tree.’”
The Back At One youth conference, which started Friday and continues today, involves education and “a spiritual impartation,” but Saturday’s block party was about pure joy, Pastor Tyson said.
“It develops and empowers young people and others to operate effectively in a godly kind of manner and to develop their relationship with God, but it also empowers them to work in a secular profession outside of the church,” he said.
The Back At One refers to “understanding who we are beyond our flaws and shortcomings,” as well as being “one with another,” he said. “I want to bring the good side to the South Side,” he quipped.
As for Smith, he’s a great role model for the kids, Pastor Tyson said.
“He’s a great guy. His heart is genuine. You don’t really get that a lot” with famous people, he said.
Smith didn’t appear to be a celebrity at the event as much as one of the taller young men in attendance, mixing freely with people all over the building.
“We want to give kids a foundation of life — to see them be successful,” Smith said. “You see a need, you fill it. You want to see kids have the same opportunity I had to go to college and be a professional at whatever.”
Smith said coming home makes him want to get involved in Youngstown.
“Our family is here. We can see the community and want to make it better.”
Sydnie Seabrook, 15, of Youngstown and Youngstown Christian School, said the conference and block party are “touching because young people are getting renewed in the Spirit.”
It’s so much better than violence, she said.
“I feel like kids shouldn’t have to worry about losing their lives wherever they go.”
Madisynne Bowers, 16, also of Youngstown and Youngstown Christian, said she appreciates that the block party and youth conference bring young people together who don’t know each other.
“It’s encouraging to see a group of young people together from all different denominations for the same cause. This is a community coming together,” said Fredric Faucette, 17, of Youngstown and Ursuline High School.