Jim Kelly teaches strong life lessons to youth in Rochester football clinic

While a day of training from a Hall of Fame quarterback and his assistants might seem like a valuable tool to improve a youth’s game, it became quite clear that Jim Kelly is teaching much more than just the X’s and O’s of football at his sixth annual Jim Kelly Football clinic that was held in Pittsford, NY at St. John Fisher College today.

Just a little more than a week after hosting his 28th annual youth football camp in Buffalo, NY, Kelly was excited to head down the I-90 and once again get back on the field to coach up the 100+ youths in attendance.

“Coming out here, I am loving this,” Kelly said. “Overall I just feel so much better than I did last year.”

“Last year, you know, I was just getting over my fight. And that fight will always continue. Anybody who has ever had cancer realizes that the fight is everyday and you just continue to move on and keep strong and only the good lord knows when your day comes, but I’m enjoying each and everyone, I can guarantee you that.”

The camp, which ran from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., got the majority of their youth attendees from the Rochester area, but also brought in families from Syracuse, Corning and other surrounding central New York locations, according to Executive Director of the camp, Rob Jurgens.

Jurgens also said that a plan to expand the camp could be in the works with the great improvements made to the St. John Fisher complex in recent years, if the logistics could be worked out with the school and the team.

The Rochester clinic is steadily growing, seeing it’s attendance rise from 75 in it’s first year to the 110 youths who showed up today.

The camp is a primer to the Bills opening training camp at the school, usually occurring much closely to the start of the Bills arriving to the campus (this year, the Bills open camp July 31st), but schedules just didn’t match up this time around.

Hall of Famer Jim Kelly coaching up the quarterbacks at his sixth annual football clinic in Rochester, NY. #bills

A video posted by Matthew Schaefer (@mschaefer716) on Jul 14, 2015 at 6:50am PDT

While the majority of the day is spent on the field, running through drills and competitions, arguably the longest-lastest impact that the one day clinic has to offer is what Kelly is able to teach the kids during the chalk talk sessions off-the-field.

“The bottom line is your attitude.  It’s all about attitude.  It doesn’t matter if you’re playing the game or coaching or just in life in general,”  Kelly said.  “It’s the attitude you take each and everyday when you wake up.  Are you going to make a difference?  Are you going to be a better person than you were the day before?”

Kelly also stressed to the kids the importance of maturing quicker in today’s society.

“Especially now-a-days with social media, the position kids are put in [today], they got to grow up a lot quicker,” Kelly said.  “They look at it and say they’re kids, they’re kids.  Yeah they’re kids if they 12-13 years old, but once you get to 16, 17 years old you should already know the difference between right or wrong.”

“Nowadays, you have cell phones at ten years old,” Kelly said.  “You’re on Facebook; you’re on Twitter at 12, 13 years old.  You already know everything about life.  I’m not to say you’re going to be a professional or a perfectionist, but the thing is, kids have to grow up so quickly nowadays. ”

“Sometimes, to be honest with you I feel sorry for them that they have to go through it, but it is what it is.  I know it’s an old cliché but the thing is when I talk to these kids at chalk talk its all about paying attention to details, know who you’re friends are, know who you hang with because if you hang out with the wrong kids you’re not going to make it very far.  Just like this shirt says,” Kelly said, as he turned around and pointed to the back of his Bills colored blue T-shirt. “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.  Your future isn’t very bright if you hang out with the wrong ones.”

Kelly’s fight with cancer also gave him a new insight on life, and he passes on a strong message of preservation to the youth as well.

“We all go through things in life,” Kelly said.  It’s what you do about it. You’re still going to have things go wrong, not going to go the way you want it.  It’s what you do about it.”

“It’s what you make of it,” Kelly said.  “I learned now, the hard way, you don’t take things for granted.  You wake up and be yourself and be the person you are, because you never know what tomorrow holds.”

Even though Kelly and his assistants can’t keep a watch on all of the campers once they leave the clinic, he hopes the kids take the important lessons they learn and apply them to themselves.

“Once you leave here, I can’t hold you’re hand, I can’t walk you through it,” Kelly said.  “But what you learn here today, you have to take what you learn, not only what you learn on the field, but if you take [these lessons], and apply it to your everyday living, then you’ve learned something.  Then you’re going to be a better person.”