Eagles fly again: How rebirth of youth football is lifting a new generation in north Columbia

Mosquitoes buzzed at ankles and toddlers with pacifiers shrieked gleefully in the damp grass. Grandparents trudged through rain puddles as aunts, uncles and cousins set up folding chairs and tailgating tents along painted sidelines.

They yelled hellos and waved hands in excited greetings, happy to be together to celebrate children doing what children should.

Before them, kids in stained jerseys and scuffed helmets huddled together in formations across the grass. They shouted pre-game reveilles and knocked shoulder pads.

It looked like Greenview once did, longtime residents of this north Columbia community say: when each Sunday entire residential blocks could be found watching kids play football.

But this program is special beyond the ways in which it brings people back to simpler days. Those gathered here, in a vacant field on Alida Street where the former W.G. Sanders Middle School once stood, have gathered by sheer force of will. The Greenview Eagles football and cheerleading program is entirely grassroots, scraped together from the pocketbooks of coaches and parents.

The team is a living portrait of how Greenview, often over-looked and under-resourced in the story of Columbia, has always taken care of its own and continues to foster a love of community over generations.

Not a revival, a return

Greenview Eagles football started around 1971, Robert Randalph Jr. remembers. A handful of fathers created the team, which was how most youth sports in Greenview went: Parents and community volunteers led the way.

The football program was just one of many facilitated by the locally-run Greenview Athletic Association, which Randalph still oversees. On weekends, the entire neighborhood would come to watch the kids play.

“We’d have a whole sideline full of people,” remembers Ronald Corley, a former Greenview Eagles player.

The program fizzled out in the mid-1990s, Randalph said, as the originators grew old. But when former player Antione Williams and a handful of other area parents wanted to start the program up again in early 2021, Randalph and the sports association were eager to help.

Williams grew up with a Greenview Eagles jersey on his back. He played for the team as a child, and his dad coached for roughly 15 years.

“It was big in the community when I played,” he recalled. “I wanted to bring it back and just bring that family atmosphere where people can come out of their house, come across the street and enjoy a game of football and see kids doing something positive versus out in the street.”

So far, that goal is being accomplished. The crowd at a scrimmage in July was ebullient with cheers, whoops and whistles.

The program today has teams for kids between 6 and 12 years old. There are cheer squads as well as football teams organized by age. Coaches help players with homework and take the teams on a few field trips every season.

Youth sports has always been an anchor in Greenview. Parents and coaches say one aspect they most appreciate about the new team is how much it feels like the way things were when they were growing up.

“That’s the reason why everybody knew who everybody was in the neighborhood,” Corley said, explaining that when he was growing up, people congregated at Greenview Park to watch whatever game was going on, whether it was basketball, football or something else.

Corley, who assists Randalph with the sports association, said in his mind the new Greenview Eagles team isn’t a revival of something lost, but rather a return to what once was.

Intangible impacts

Greenview was originally created for Black World War II veterans to buy homes after the war, according to a 2011 article in the Columbia Star. The neighborhood has always been tight-knit. Randalph said residents have made a habit of looking after their own.

The sports association runs a free lunch program for area seniors and this month has been gathering school supplies for a local back-to-school drive.

Randolph said it’s vital that players see them giving back. It’s these less obvious lessons parents say make the biggest impact on their kids.

“The coaches form great bonds,” said Adrienne Banks.

Banks manned a camping cooler-turned concession stand as she spoke, occasionally handing Gatorade and candy to customers. Her son plays for the Greenview Eagles but broke his arm before this season. Still, he insisted on joining his teammates on the sidelines during the scrimmage.

As a single parent, Banks said she’s particularly grateful for the coaches, who have gone to parent-teacher conferences and recitals, even responding to calls about behavioral concerns at school.

“We have kids out here who are maybe a foster kid, or they may live with an aunt or an uncle, and they come out here and they have all this support from all the community and people around,” said coach Torrance Gilliam, who also helped re-establish the program.

Youth sports of any kind are an intervening force to keep kids motivated toward positive outcomes, or “distracted from other negative distractions,” as one coach put it.

But reestablishing the Greenview Eagles has been difficult, coaches say.

It takes about $20,000 to start a new youth football program, said assistant coach Desmond Wilkes.

In addition to paying for practice space, equipment and uniforms, the Greenview Eagles pay $4,000 to use an area school’s football field.

To join the Greenview Eagles, participants pay $225 per year. Because of the price, the team doesn’t have nearly as many kids from the Greenview area as they would like, Wilkes added.

They’ve looked for ways to help bridge the gap, but the program needs wider support, coaches say.

Gilliam started a GoFundMe page last year to help pay for a new youth sports complex. The fundraising goal was $10,000, but only $1,400 has been donated despite the page being active for more than a year.

“There are volunteers, but you have to give them what they need. You can’t send a guy out there and he has to provide the cleats, the baseball, and he’s pulling money out of his family’s pocket,” Wilkes said.

Still, it’s a challenge many Greenview parents are willing to push through.

“Having (our kids) see we all can work together collectively to do something positive, that’s important,” Banks said.

When the scrimmage ended, as lawn chairs were folded and blankets collected, two children in matching mesh jerseys dirty from tackles and touchdowns met across a chain link fence.

“Hey man, you did good out there today,” one of the players said to the other before grabbing his hand through the fence in a combination handshake, fist-bump. Then they were off in different directions. They would see each other at practice.