Haslett

By: Lee Dudasik

The NFL draft can bring many things to a city but for the most part, it's just chaos and excitement. Michigan was lucky enough to have Detroit selected to be the host city for this year's draft. The day before the 1st round is scheduled to occur, some of the top prospects get together and host a unified camp for some of the Special Olympic athletes from schools around the state to come and participate. Haslett was one of the schools invited to this event.

Haslett brought six special Olympics athletes to the event, all of whom were able to meet and interact with top NFL draft prospects such as Caleb Williams, Drake Maye and others. When we spoke with Haslett unified teacher Adam Fisher, about how they received this opportunity he said “We have a great relationship with the Special Olympics of Michigan, and they ended up reaching out to us with this opportunity”. Getting this chance is very unique and will most likely not happen again for a long time. Playing with the best of the best is something that not many people can brag about.

The skills camp was held at Corner Park in downtown Detroit. Many of us know it better as the former site of Tiger Stadium. Tiger stadium was torn down and rebuilt into a public park/baseball field for local teams to use and host special events at. During the event held here athletes would rotate around stations based on various football skills including, tackling, catching, throwing and celebrating. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was also present for the event, spending most of his time interacting with the young athletes and speaking with the coaches. The NFL put everything they had into making sure that this event was something memorable and unique for these athletes.

For one of the prospects at the camp, it was their first time working with special needs students. Alabama’s Dallas Turner said that “It just means a lot, you know, being out here showing a lot of love and support to these kids. I had 2 annual camps, this summer will be my third. My 3rd year having my own little summer camp for the kids and stuff like that. So you know doing stuff for kids is something I'm kind of passionate about. I was once a kid too”.  

Across all levels, this event was able to bring out the best of football and set the stage for the NFL draft weekend.