Carolina Panthers’ home turf swarmed with youth football players Monday. Dreams came true

If you stood near the fog machine and the inflatable tunnel in Bank of America Stadium just before 7 p.m. on Monday, you would’ve heard one group of kids loud and clear.

“What time is it?!”

“Game time!”

What time is it?!”

“GAME TIME!”

A few minutes later, you’d hear another group of kids. This team was just as loud and just as bewildered and roared another well-worn battle cry.

“Who’s house?!”

“Our house!”

“Who’s house?!”

“OURS!”

And on this night, those kids were right: Charlotte’s largest venue belonged to them.

The Carolina Panthers on Monday hosted their “Little Panthers Game of the Month,” a program the organization has put on for decades that makes a Pop Warner youth football game feel like an NFL one.

The game features play-by-play broadcasters. A sideline reporter. Aerial film cameras and high-tech sound catchers. Two Carolina Panthers players — this year they were rookies Jammie Robinson and Jonathan Mingo — are tasked with heading into each locker room and surprising the teams by hyping them up. (“Who’s the best team in the state?!” Mingo would yell in both locker rooms. Players on both teams responded with an enviable anything-is-possible energy. “US!”)

The experience is all caught on camera, produced and then aired a few days later. This year’s game will be on WMYT-TV at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4, Panthers officials said.

And this Little Panthers game was especially fun: This was the first time it was held in Bank of America Stadium.

“I didn’t believe him at first,” said Ethan Funderburk, quarterback of the Colts, when asked what his reaction was when his coach and father, Eric, told him where he’d be playing Monday. He then smiled: “I was just like, ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna play at the Panthers stadium?’ It had me looking up what the locker room looked like and everything. Yesterday, I was here (for the Texans game), and Coach was just like, ‘You’re going to play here tomorrow.’”

And Ethan still couldn’t believe it.

Gavin McPhatter, a defensive lineman for the Colts, admitted with a smile that the clock couldn’t move fast enough during school Monday. Too many thoughts were running through his head: How big will the stadium be? Will my parents remember to pick me up from school early enough? How about parking uptown — will that all work out?

“I was thinking about the Panthers stadium all day at school today,” said McPhatter with a big smile on his face. He admitted that he couldn’t help but daydream in class about what he would do, how he would play: “I was making tackles.”

Funderburk then jumped in: “And I was scoring touchdowns.”

It was ‘surreal’ to play on Carolina Panthers turf

The excitement was palpable everywhere. Wide receiver Miles Kelley and quarterback Ashton Jones, both representing the Chargers, had already choreographed a touchdown dance celebration if they were fortunate enough to score. (It kind of resembled the dance Bryce Young and Frankie Luvu did in the postgame locker room on Sunday night, after the Panthers beat the Texans.)

“I was just hype,” said Jones, using the kind of terms pro athletes do.

“It feels like, surreal,” said Kelley, using another oft-overused sports term. Except, in this moment, in this setting, “surreal” felt appropriate. “I mean, it’s so big. It’s hard to imagine that a Panther has played here, like Cam Newton and Christian McCaffrey.”

After the teams traded touchdowns to begin the game, the Chargers took care of business and ultimately high-stepped off the field with a 33-13 win and the league championship. But as both coaches acknowledged, the experience of playing in the stadium was what made Monday so special.

“I think it’s awesome,” Eric Funderburk, head coach of the MARA Colts and father of Ethan, said before the game.

The 53-year-old coach is a Charlotte native — class of Olympic High School 1988 who went on to play football at South Carolina State — and was shocked when he got the call while walking his dogs a few weeks ago. He said he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be 11 years old and playing in an NFL stadium. When he was 11, after all, he was jumping over creeks and throwing rocks, like other 11 year olds do.

“I’m a community guy,” Funderburk said. “And not just where I live, but just for youth, I’m big in that. With my kids, I keep them together year round. They play 7-on-7, basketball, and we play tackle football. So I really appreciate the Panthers reaching out, showing the interest in youth sports. I think it’s a good thing for the city.”

Arthur Jones, the 39-year-old head coach for the Chargers, agreed.

“So happy for these kids,” said Jones, who is the father of his team’s starting quarterback, Ashton. “A lot of these kids probably would never even get to come to a Panthers game, much less get to play here. So for these kids, it’s like a dream come true.”

Daniel Jones, NFL QB, once played in this special event

Most of the kids, in warmups, couldn’t believe they were there. It’s the same stadium where Christian McCaffrey and Steve Smith played. The same one Cam Newton brought an incomparable fire to — the same one Bryce Young is trying set ablaze again.

One NFL player, in fact, even played in this particular game — Little Panthers of the Month — over a decade ago. And that’s Daniel Jones, a Charlotte native and alumni of the South Park Falcons who’s now the starting quarterback for the New York Giants.

Even he remembers that day. Jones didn’t get to play in Bank of America Stadium — he played the contest in one of the city’s larger venues but not the largest — but he said that his 11-year-old self would’ve considered that “a dream come true.”

“During the game, I played cornerback, a little bit of running back in the second half, played defense,” Jones recounted of his time playing in the Little Panthers Game of the Month several years ago, in response to a question from The Charlotte Observer. “I remember it just being a big deal that it was on TV, and as a little kid, you look up to the pro players.

“In Charlotte it’s the Panthers, and you look up to those guys, watch them on TV, so just the opportunity to play in a big stadium and know that the game was televised, it was just extremely exciting as a young guy.”

‘The experiences for the kids’

Bank of America Stadium has been the site of many non-Carolina Panthers NFL games this year. That includes concerts that featured the world’s brightest stars — from Elton John to the Rolling Stones to Beyoncé — as well as a bunch of athletic events, including a high school football game that featured Northwestern High School out of Rock Hill and Providence Day out of Charlotte.

Riley Fields, director of community relations for the Panthers, said there are two big reasons the Panthers keep this tradition alive. It keeps them connected with grassroots football in the community, and it gives the Panthers a chance to give back to their community in a way that’s experiential, memorable.

“The coolest point in all of this,” Fields said, “is the experience of the players, the experiences for the kids.”

There were a bunch of fun and intense moments Monday. There were misdirection runs and celebrations and hopeful halftime speeches. Mallard Creek’s London Valcin and Jordan Bazemore each ran for two touchdowns and combined for 200 yards. MARA’s Williams Tyndall ran the ball 17 times for 82 yards and two scores, too.

But perhaps the most special moment of all came in that tunnel, right before game time — when the young football players sprinted onto the field that belonged to them.

Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated which channel the game will air on. It will run on WMYT-TV on Saturday, Nov. 4, at 2 p.m. The error has been corrected.