Big Ten alum featured at Witt football camp

Camp at Wittenberg is an opportunity to give back to the community.

Trey Beard, 6, runs a drill Tuesday, July 7, during the Huddle for Hope Foundation football camp at Wittenberg University. Staff photo by Barbara J. Perenic

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Former Ohio State player and Springfield native Dee Miller works with young athletes. Staff photo by Barbara J. Perenic

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Photos: Huddle for Hope camp

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By David Jablonski, Staff Writer Updated 7:44 AM Wednesday, July 8, 2009

SPRINGFIELD — Former Ohio State linebacker Joe Cooper asked an easy question and, for the most part, got the answers he expected.

“Where do you want to go to school?” Cooper asked on Tuesday, July 7. “Ohio State?”

Every kid sitting in front of Cooper on the turf at Wittenberg’s Edwards-Maurer Field raised their hands — except for one. One little Michigan fan wasn’t about to bow to peer pressure.

That was fine with Cooper, who was joined by another former Buckeye, South grad Dee Miller, and a fellow Big Ten alum, North grad and former Michigan State defensive lineman Nick Myers, at the Huddle for Hope Foundation’s first football camp. The foundation is a youth sports charity started in Springfield this year.

For the former players and for the men who started the Huddle for Hope, Tuesday’s camp was about giving back.

“That’s one thing my mom always focused on,” said Miller, who’s now an owner of a State Farm Insurance agency in Hilliard and a sports analyst for 1460 AM in Columbus. “Coming back home, that makes it even greater.”

Cooper, a captain for the Buckeyes in 2000 and 2001, now coaches a youth football team in Reynoldsburg.

“For me, it’s fun. I don’t look at it as a job,” he said. “I just come out here to have fun with the kids and teach them the fundamentals. Sometimes people get away from the fundamentals.”

Thirty-four kids, from ages 6-11, attended Tuesday’s camp — the first of three sessions this week. South graduate Ryan Glass, the Huddle for Hope’s spokesman, was happy with how it all came together.

“For how late in the game we actually got involved with the football camp, I think it’s gone pretty well,” Glass said. “We were hoping to get 50-some campers, and I think today we got mid-30s. So we didn’t get all the people who signed up. But overall with Joe Cooper and Dee Miller coming out and Nick Myers and all the high school help, I think it’s been a big success.”

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