KGB Article

porky88

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Not sure if someone posted this. If so then my bad but if not then this is a nice read on KGB.

http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/NFL/NFC/NFC+North/Green+Bay/Features/2007/parr092007.htm

Making each sack count

Gbaja-Biamila ties performance on field to charitable work off it

By Dan Parr
Sept. 20, 2007

In the NFL, reduced playing time can result in locker-room makeovers consisting of an enraged athlete, a pair of fists, and the nearest wall, face, or anything else that makes the mistake of getting in the way.

It can lead to sour relationships with teammates and coaches and some of the demoted even demand a release from their contract, thinking they’re good enough to start elsewhere.

You’ll have to forgive Green Bay’s Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila if he takes the opposite approach. After being moved from a first-unit defensive end to a third-down, pass-rush specialist in the offseason, he found the bright side so many before him have missed.

“A lot of guys would not handle it the way he’s handling it,” said Packers DE Aaron Kampman, last season’s NFC sack leader with 15 1/2. “He just continues to go out and work hard and do the things he knows he’s capable of. I’m excited for him because I think he continues to have great things in store.”

Great things are almost certainly in store for Gbaja-Biamila, who turns 30 years of age Sept. 24, and whose name means “big man come and save me” in Nigerian, both on and off the field in 2007.

The 6-4, 247-pounder is just 4 1/2 sacks away from breaking the late Reggie White’s all-time Packers sack record of 68 1/2. He has failed to hunt down a quarterback two weeks into the season, but if he can match his total from last year, six — his fewest in a season since his rookie season in 2000 — he will top one of the finest pass rushers of the modern era.

“It’s truly an honor to have the opportunity to be able to pass a man that was not only a great man off the field, but a great player on the field and dominated this game,” Gbaja-Biamila acknowledged. “I don’t know about ever getting his total, but I’ll take the one with the Packers.”

White retired from Green Bay two seasons before Gbaja-Biamila broke into the league, but the two did form a friendship before White’s untimely death in 2004.

“It was kind of cool when he came to one of our games,” Gbaja-Biamila said. “I remember I was struggling because I kept getting chipped and double-teamed and then he said ‘Man, I used to hate when they would do that to me.’ I said ‘What? Reggie White got played the same way?’ Because when you watch him on TV, you don’t think he’s worried, you just think he’s going to get through.

“To hear him actually say he is concerned, it’s like we’re the same. We deal with the same issues. We exchanged numbers and I stayed in touch with him. When he was in town, I’d give him a call.”

Gbaja-Biamila knows records are made to be broken and his might not last for long, especially if Kampman stays healthy and has a few more seasons like he did in ’06. But, KGB’s legacy won’t end there. Using football as his tool, Gbaja-Biamila is changing lives forever away from the chalk lines.

This season, for the first time, the eighth-year veteran is committing $1,000 dollars of his own money for every sack he reels in to a Green Bay homeless shelter called Freedom House. The idea caught fire and spread. With many other contributors on board, the Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila Sack Fund was created.

So, each time the Packers’ No. 94 sacks the opposing quarterback during the ’07 season, a check for $9,000 will go toward helping Green Bay’s homeless families at Freedom House.

“That ($9,000) will take care of all the food we need for five families of four for their entire 8-10 weeks at Freedom House,” said Phil Wimer, the Business Services Director at the shelter. “It would provide bed, blankets and pillows for the entire facility for one year. It would pay for each child that comes through Freedom House in a year to have a winter coat.”

The shelter’s program basically serves as a two-month crash course for families on how to obtain and maintain a job while building a stable home. Adults attend courses at night and have to be out of the shelter for a few hours every day looking for jobs. At the end of their stay, Freedom House supplies families with new furnishings for their home or apartment. About 100 families, or 250 individuals, come through the program every year.

“We take them from the point where they’re living in a vehicle, or with family or friends, or maybe bouncing around from shelter to shelter, to where they’re in a sustainable unit for family housing,” Wimer said.

According to Wimer, Gbaja-Biamila was hooked since he first visited Freedom House this past spring.

“This is becoming Kabeer’s baby, it’s becoming his charity as much as anybody else’s,” he said. “He takes a lot of pride in what he does and it’s definitely not a hands-off thing for him. He’s here at the drop of a hat.”

Gbaja-Biamila's work with the Green Bay shelter is the latest in a long line of charitable endeavors. As a prep athlete in Los Angeles, Calif., he was one of 40 student-owners of the country's first student-run natural food company, "Food from the hood," which provided his city with quality organic produce. His commitment to helping the less fortunate never wavered as his career progressed.

Wimer doesn’t know if Gbaja-Biamila will toss Chargers QB Philip Rivers into the turf for his first combination sack/donation on Sunday at Lambeau Field. Fortunately, "when" and "how much" are not questions Wimer has to worry about. He has seen the player’s commitment.

“Kabeer definitely fills a very unique role in Freedom House that no one has ever filled before, whether they be regular volunteers or professional athletes, or celebrities,” he said.

One thing he is sure of, “No one has ever done it like (KGB) before.”
 

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