NFF Announces $5 Million Play It Smart Campaign

The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame

Initiative will provide critical support for the NFF’s highly successful mentoring program

MORRISTOWN, N.J., August 23, 2006 – The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame (NFF) announced today that it has launched a national $5 million fundraising campaign in 2006-07 to fund its highly successful “Play It Smart” initiative.

“Over the past eight years we have developed one of the most comprehensive and effective youth development programs in the country for helping at-risk student-athletes,” said NFF President Steve Hatchell. “We would love to be in a thousand schools because we know our model works, and this campaign will play a key role in our ability to support the program.”

Introduced in 1998 and currently in 136 high schools (listed at www.playitsmart.org) in 35 states and reaching 12,000 at-risk student-athletes, Play It Smart trains “academic” coaches to work with high school football teams in underserved areas during the entire school year, taking the transferable life skills learned on the field and applying them in the classroom and the community.

“Because of the Play It Smart program, I took school more seriously and (developed) my study habits,” said Southern California wide receiver Dwayne Jarrett in a May 22 USA Today article, which said Jarrett wouldn’t have made it to USC without Play It Smart. “Going into my first year of college it would have been much tougher without the organization and management skills I learned.”

With major financial support from the NFL and the NFL Players Association, corporations, communities and individuals, the program has achieved dramatic results, including:

  98% of participants graduating high school, compared to a national rate of 86%;

  80% of seniors enrolling in college compared to 64% of their peers;

  Participants completing more than 60,000 hours of community service annually;

  Rosters increasing by 35% for teams with fewer than 40 players; and

  71 seniors earning spots on Division I-A rosters in 2006 as incoming freshman, bringing the number of participants in the elite collegiate ranks to more than 150 student-athletes.

The fundraising campaign is being headed by USC’s Ronnie Lott, a 2002 inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame who recently agreed to serve as the chairman of the program’s National Advisory Board, which is comprised of leaders in the fields of education, business and community affairs.

“When you think about life, one of the things you have to learn is how to compete,” Lott said. “Most of these kids know how to compete in athletics, yet when it comes to learning how to compete outside of athletics, they need to have the right tools. Play It Smart is teaching them those types of skills as they move forward.”

The campaign will solicit funds from individual philanthropists, foundations and corporations in the form of grants, donations and sponsorships. The objective of the campaign is to solidify support for the current schools in the program and identify new schools for inclusion.

ABOUT The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame

With 120 chapters and 12,000 members nationwide, The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame, a non-profit educational organization, runs programs designed to use the power of amateur football in developing scholarship, citizenship and athletic achievement in young people. The NFF presents the MacArthur Trophy, the Draddy Trophy, presented by HealthSouth, and releases the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) Standings. NFF programs include the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind., Play It Smart, the NFF Center for Youth Development Through Sport at Springfield College (Mass.), the NFL-NFF Coaching Academy, and scholarships of over $1 million for college and high school scholar-athletes. Learn more at www.footballfoundation.org.

ABOUT PLAY IT SMART

Established in 1998 by The National Football Foundation as an educational program, Play It Smart works to turn football teams from tough inner city environments into learning teams. Designed to take a student-athlete’s passion and dedication to football, Play It Smart leverages the positive peer pressure of a team to make academic achievement the norm. At the heart of the program is a year-round academic coach, an official member of a team’s staff, who serves as a direct link to the classroom by helping players and the team achieve their academic and personal development goals during the entire school year. With significant financial support from the NFL and NFL Players Association, Play It Smart currently reaches over 12,000 participants at 136 high schools in 85 cities and 35 states. www.PlayItSmart.org.

Contacts:

Hillary Jeffries, National Football Foundation

Phone: 1-800-486-1865, ext. 123


Steve Griffith, Pyramid Public Relations

Phone: 212-643-1068, ext. 250