Edmonds camp gives Seahawks’ Lockett chance to ‘give back’
Published 1:30 am Sunday, June 4, 2017
EDMONDS — It has been a trying six months for Tyler Lockett.
But you wouldn’t know it from the way the Seahawks wide receiver bounded from group to group Saturday at Edmonds-Woodway High School, jumping into drills and flashing the ear-to-ear grin fans in Seattle have grown to love.
Lockett showed virtually no ill effects from the gruesome season-ending broken leg he suffered while catching a touchdown pass during Seattle’s 34-31 loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Christmas Eve.
“It’s getting a lot better,” Lockett said of his leg. “I’m just taking it one day at a time. Like I said, just enjoying the process. It’s nothing that I can’t overcome and I’ve overcome a lot of things before. It’s just an exciting journey for me.”
The former Kansas State record-setter and All-American was at Edmonds-Woodway on Saturday for the one-day Tyler Lockett Football ProCamp for players in grades 1-8.
Lockett said it was the first time he’s hosted a camp on his own and that it didn’t take much convincing when the ProCamps organization reached out to him and sought a partnership.
“They could have gone after anybody on the Seattle Seahawks,” he said. “To me (it is) an honor to be able to have ProCamps or whoever it is come and ask me specifically if I wanted to do a camp with them. I’m excited, this is my first year (and) hopefully we can continue to do it each year and make it an ongoing thing.”
A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Lockett grew up attending camps put on by his father, Kevin, and uncle, Aaron, both of whom also starred at Kansas State.
“For me, it’s all about having a good time and being able to give back,” Lockett said. “I think it’s pretty fun and pretty exciting. A lot of these kids have talent and I’m excited to see what happens for them. One kid asked me if I could play for 16 years so I could play against him. So I’m going to play for 16 years.”
Several hundred youth players cycled through stations Saturday morning as they worked with local high school and college mentors. Lockett managed to talk teammates Paul Richardson and rookie Cyril Grayson into helping out.
Grayson echoed Lockett’s mantra of giving back.
“This is an obligation for us — we’re supposed to give back,” said Grayson, a former track star at LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
“People gave to us so much that we don’t have a choice,” he continued. “This is something that makes me feel fulfilled. It’s something that makes me have a warm feeling on the inside just to see how happy they are to be here, to be around us and it’s kind of to give them hope, too, because we were all there at one time.”
Grayson has a perseverance story of his own. He accepted a track scholarship to LSU intending to also play football, but NCAA rules dictate that an athlete receiving a scholarship in a “minor” sport can’t participate in a “major” sport. Still, Grayson — who didn’t play a down of college football — impressed at LSU’s pro day and earned a contract with the Seahawks as an undrafted free agent.
Grayson said one of the values of such a camp is that youngsters get to know the pros as real people.
“We’re not anything that is bigger than anything else,” he said “Maybe a symbol of something bigger, but (it’s important) they know they can get here because we were once there.”
Parents took photos and video from outside the fence of the E-W practice field and from the stands at adjacent Edmonds Stadium. But for Grayson and Lockett, the focus was completely on the youngsters.
“There’s not a lot of things we can do with the kids except when we go to the schools and stuff like that,” Lockett said. “So being able to have a camp that is specifically for the kids is a way for them to interact with some of their favorite players.”
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