C-N football takes Day of Service off campus into the community

Defensive coordinator Mike Clowney puts up a door with assistance from linebacker Brandon Staton

Posted: Jul 18, 2015

VIDEO: Carson-Newman Football Day of Service

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Voluntary summer workouts for Carson-Newman football players typically involve a pre-dawn wakeup call and lots of heavy lifting.

Saturday morning, the Eagles were still up at dawn, but this time the heavy lifting involved maintenance work for the Carson-Newman football team's sixth annual day of service. This year was the first that the day of service branched out into the Jefferson City community as well.

"This tells me something about our kids," Carson-Newman head football coach Ken Sparks said. "I think they learn a whole lot about how to give. We're not going to be a very good football team if we don't know how to give. We're not going to have a very good relationship with our Lord if we don't know how to give, or for anyone for that matter."

In addition to campus cleanups, Carson-Newman football sent crews to help with the future Mossy Meadows Studio (a future pottery and ceramics store on Branner Avenue off the corner of Old Andrew Johnson Highway), Cloud Nine Tanning Studio, Sustainable Aquatics and the old Ashton-Britt service station on Old AJ Highway.

"It's a different experience helping out Jefferson City this year," Carson-Newman quarterback Goose Manning said. "It feels like we're taking ownership of not only the town, but our campus and our stadium. It makes you appreciate all of them a little bit more."

The players divided into 12 groups to assist with various service projects. Some players stayed on campus to pull weeds and paint pylons, while others helped feed fish at Sustainable Aquatics.

"What you want in teambuilding experiences are really focused experience," John Carberry, the owner and chairman of Sustainable Aquatics said. "I think they'll remember the discipline of what it takes to keep these fish alive and that will create better team chemistry.

"One of the reasons we live here is because of Carson-Newman. The fact that we have Carson-Newman here means that our school systems are better. People come here and stay here and that raises the level for everyone."

The move to help out in downtown Jefferson City was spurred by the university's leadership.

"It was our university's First Lady, Kay O'Brien, who came up with the idea to take it to the community," Sparks said. "Dr. Randall O'Brien (Carson-Newman's president) and Allen Morgan (Carson-Newman's Director of Athletics) have pushed and challenged us to go throughout the community, block by block and interact with our Jefferson City family."

While the impact of the players was felt off campus, the school's physical plant director and construction manager Ondes Webster appreciated their efforts closer to home.

"These men work," Webster, said. "They do ten times more than you'd ever imagine. They do things that we are often neither physically able to do, nor financially able to do."

Assistant coach Dino Waites has experienced C-N football's commitment to community service both as a coach and when he was a player in the late 2000s. He said he enjoys the bonding that takes place when Carson-Newman's players lend a piece of themselves to others.

"Any chance you have to give back, really you're receiving," Waites said. "As a player, they have a lot of stuff to do. For that reason, it's really good to see them come out and do something that they're not asked to do and give back to the community and Carson-Newman."

Sparks spent his day doing a myriad of tasks, from filling coolers with drinks to keep his players hydrated to violently removing rose bush roots from in front of the fountain besides the football building bearing his name. Regardless of the task, Sparks had the Lord on his mind.

"We've talked a whole lot about the 13^th chapter of First Corinthians," Sparks said. "Our players are putting away childish things today because I know they would rather be in bed this morning. To see the investment they make in our campus and our community, that's pretty special to me."

-C-N-