Detroit Lions host Tackle Reading event at Ford Field
· Yahoo Sports
More than 500 students hit the turf at Ford Field and hit the books with Detroit Lions players Wednesday, March 4.
The Lions are among 12 NFL teams taking part in the Tackle Reading initiative, created to combine a love of football and reading at a young age. Wednesday's event had a Dr. Suess theme, for what would have been author Theodor Geisel's 122nd birthday. Second and third graders from across the state took part in the "Suess Olympics" on the field including a football toss and drills led by former Lions players Eric Stocz and Ross Weaver. Off the field, Lions tight end Brock Wright read "The Cat in the Hat" to students toward the end of the day.
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"This year, it's the 10th annual tour," said Kathryn Starke, creator of the Tackle Reading initiative. "So we have teams every single day this week doing something big. This is the biggest.
"To be able to organize an event for (500) children and bus them to Ford Field, where their local famous team plays just increases the motivation, increases the engagement. The organization to put this together is incredible."
The Lions have participated in the event for the past three years but attended each school individually. This year was the first year the organization decided to bring the schools to Ford Field.
Starke, a former elementary teacher from Richmond, Virginia, brought the initiative to life after writing her own book: "Tackle Reading," which featured professional athletes sharing their stories about reading and the challenges they faced. She decided to reach out to the Washington Commanders to host the first event.
While Starke thought the program could be successful, she said, she didn't expect it to last as long as it has.
"I thought we were only gonna do it for one year, but 10 years later we're still celebrating this event because it's all about motivating kids to enjoy reading and using that motivation through sports," Starke said.
After spending some time in the end zone at Ford Field, Jaxon Southern, a 9-year-old third grader at Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary-Middle School, said he wants to be a police officer when he grows up and knows that reading will help him achieve that goal.
"If you read about police then when you get older, you will learn how to be a policeman," Southern said.
Okiymo Manica, a school counselor from Bethune, said the program has helped inspire students at her school to read more.
"It's just amazing how it has sparked children to want to pick up the book and encourage them to continue reading. You know, when we grew up, we would read before we went to sleep. Before you went to sleep, you had your parents read to you. So it's almost bringing that back. Because if you cannot read, you're gonna struggle with everything else," Manica said. "And so having this program right here is really a motivation and an incentive for us to increase those reading scores."
Eric Guzmán covers youth sports culture at the Free Press as a corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Make a tax-deductible contribution to support this work.
Contact Eric Guzmán: [email protected]; 313-222-1850.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Lions host Tackle Reading event for kids