Former James Clemens standout Monty Rice hosts first football camp

MADISON, Ala. (WAFF) - Tennessee Titans linebacker and former James Clemens standout Monty Rice was putting kids to work on Saturday for his first youth football camp.

Rice, alongside his peers and James Clemens Head Coach Chad McGehee, ran kids through a workout on the Jets turf field, complete with various football drills and conditioning. This was Rice’s first football camp for his hometown community, but he says it won’t be his last. He wants these kids to understand anything is possible with the right mindset, coupled with hard work.

“I think it’s huge to have people that lived in the same area that you did, grew up in the same area you did, and they doing something that you want to do,” Rice said. “That just let the kids know that, ‘Hey if Monty Rice can do it, I can do it.’ That’s just the example I want to set. I used to have teachers when I was young, they were like, ‘Only the one percent make it,’ and I’m like, ‘Why can’t I be the one percent?’ And that’s the same thing for these kids. Y’all can be the one percent if you choose to.”

Kids of all ages participated in the camp, but Rice didn’t take it easy on any of the campers. He says coaches held him to a certain standard, so he wanted to do the same for all those who participated.

“I’m not going to let them cheat the game because the coaches that I had, Coach [Kirby] Smart, coaches at James Clemens... They didn’t let us cheat it when we was here, so I just want to show them like, ‘Hey, football taught me more than any school or any teacher could teach me.’ It teaches you how to work with people you might not like all the time, teaches you teamwork, teaches you discipline,” Rice said. “When coach says foot behind the line, it’s foot behind the line, and those life skills go a long way.”

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