BEREA, Ohio — Football season is just around the corner, and that's evident with the Browns progressing through training camp—back at their facilities for the first time after starting camp at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. It's also almost football season at the high school level, so on Sunday, the Browns got one local team ready for their season with a big surprise.
Before taking the field for practice, Browns players took time to greet the Bedford High School football team, who had gotten the invite from the Browns organization to attend Sunday's practice session.
The high schoolers were all smiles as guys like MJ Emerson, who made handshakes for some of the players, and David Njoku, who did a celebration jump with the players, made their way down the line to say hello.
Meeting Browns players was already a big moment for the team, but that was just the beginning of the day.
After the meet and greet, the Bedford High School team turned around to look at two carts covered with black cloth. On the count of three, quarterback Deshaun Watson, cornerbacks Denzel Ward and Justin Hardee and defensive tackle Mike Hall Jr. lifted the cloth to reveal brand new white five-star Xenith helmets for the Bearcats to wear this season.
At once, the team jumped up and down, screaming in excitement once they saw their new helmets.
"Today was just awesome," said Bedford head coach Zac Toth. "Being able to have the kids come and watch the training camp of an NFL team was really cool and for them to surprise them at the end with helmets was awesome. I got a little teared up. Our kids work really hard and they deserve it so its pretty cool to get them in the best gear because they deserve it."
The Browns, partnered with Meijer, University Hospitals and Xenith, provided the school with the new gear. Since 2017, the group has given away nearly 3,700 new helmets to local schools. Now, Bedford joins those schools.
Toth said this gift is something the kids are incredibly excited to show off and represent and perhaps can even help grow their football program.
"This is big. Kids like flashy, kids like gear, kids like the coolest stuff so it's going to help keep our kids coming from the middle school up to the high school and fact of the matter is we're going to win some football games this year and we're going to win and look good doing it," Toth said.
Jaivon Hudson, a running back at Bedford, called the moment a "great opportunity and a great blessing."
"Tears of joy," Jaivon said. "It shows how much Cleveland cares. It shows how much of a family everybody is. Now we got to go to states in these helmets right here."
Jaivon said the team told the Browns players they'd have to make it to the championships in their gift, to which there was only one answer.
"They said 'Go get it done,'" he said. "They going to get it done, we going to get it done, let's all get it done together."
