Hall of Famers reach out to youth with messages of strength

It doesn’t matter how the message is conveyed as long as it is communicated.

So the Pro Football Hall of Fame will have three members livestream a session Friday with Ohio youngsters as part of its Strong Youth Strong Community program. Anthony Munoz, Aeneas Williams and Darrell Green, plus Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, will connect with the middle school and high school students in conjunction with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and Buckeye Health Plan, a division of Centene Corp.

The idea is simple: relaying and emphasizing the tenets of the Hall of Fame's mission to the youngsters.

“This is a continuation of a program we have done in person for the last few years,” says Hall of Fame President/CEO David Baker. "They really care about the values that we espouse at the Hall of Fame, and they respect the Gold Jackets who have tried to demonstrate those values their whole life.

“Now to do this virtually with our governor and Iman (McFarland of Centene and a former basketball player at North Carolina), it is a real opportunity to have that same impact, maybe on an even broader level than 500 to 1,000 people in a room. But the message is still the same: You are not alone, let’s huddle up and do this together. You can be stronger by relying on these values, and you can have a place in making your community stronger.”

Munoz and Green, who made the NFL's list of top 100 players of its first century, and Williams, now a pastor in Ferguson, Missouri, have been regulars in the program. Baker calls them three of the “most spectacular Gold Jackets who fully stand for our values."

It actually was the idea of Green, an outstanding cornerback for the Redskins, for the hall to reach out to the youth of America to promote what he says the Hall of Fame stands for: respect,...