Growing up in Fresno, California, Caleb Kelly had a mentor who showed him football as a path to a safe life.
Now at the University of Oklahoma, the junior linebacker has a mentoring program that shows football players paths to being successful men after they leave the game.
Kelly’s mentor, Tony Perry, died last fall at 54. Kelly’s coach, Lincoln Riley, birthed GrowU last summer.
The organization, say current and former players who’ve been part of it, separates Sooners from the game they are known for and helps them understand the impact they can have.
They help in the community, building bridges and relationships that will benefit the players after football.
Among the activities players have done in recent months are going to nonprofit organizations such as the J.D. McCarty Center, visiting the Norman Veterans Center and hearing from successful speakers who visit the football offices.
“I think the GrowU experiences focusing on the man aspect outside of football … It’s bringing outside people who often didn’t even play the sport and they get to talk to as they get to tell us about what they’re doing,” Kelly said, “they get to tell us about real life and get to tell us about being a man and how we are to go about being a man and just help us learn and process that and just have those opportunities to really work on that in our minds.”
Other speakers have included a 7-year-old entrepreneur who makes soap, inspirational speaker C.L. “Shep” Shepherd and football player turned neurosurgeon Myron Rolle.
Kelly’s favorite? Hearing from business executives.
“It was really cool to have all the bosses come in. The guys who were big CEO guys … they all had such a calm demeanor about the thing, like a person who has thousands of people under them would be stressed out and it would be real antsy, but they were just chilling. They’re able to just talk to us, they’re able to be real people, and I think that’s really important. Being the CEO, being able to have all that power and still be a human being – I just really respect that. And they were just down-to-earth people.
“It reminded me of my teammates. We got a lot of guys who are a high-profile guys, guys projected to go to the league … And when to come back around and just a bunch of normal people again.”
One of those executives was OU’s new President Jim Gallogly, who previously ran a major international company.
“We were trying to say life is full of ups and downs,” Gallogly said in a video released by GrowU after his session. “We all have setbacks in life, and we learn from them and move ahead. But most of all, if we work hard, focus and give it your all, you can accomplish anything you want,”
The impact of GrowU has also helped the team become a more cohesive unit, Kelly and offensive assistant Ty Darlington says. Riley’s efforts have really brought a brotherhood to OU football with team meetings and creating a bond with all the players not just one group.
“Now it’s the full team,” Kelly said about the program’s unifying impact. “A lot of our stuff, we do GrowU as a full team, and so it’s just a lot of us being together.”
Riley, he said, tells them to hang out with your brothers – throughout the team, finding ways to incorporate younger players into the team’s culture.
The name on the front of an OU jersey means a lot, Darlington said. And GrowU helps players come to be known for the name on the back as well.
“We’re heavy on professional development, with resume building and mock interviews and getting ready for them to get a job someday.”
That resonates with Kelly, reminding him of his mentor, who died in November.
GrowU, Kelly said, surfaces the same things Perry preached. How it’s not just about you, it’s about being selfless and growing as a man and what it means to be a man.
“If you see somebody hurting, you can go up to them, you can talk to him like a man, you can talk to him face to face, they can interact and you can learn something from them or you can help them out. They can learn something from you, but it doesn’t matter as long as you’re both getting better than it’s good.”
