For the second week in a row, football players from the University of Georgia are visiting Camp Sunshine. The facility in Rutledge, Georgia serves children who current and former cancer patients. Steven Colquitt is Associate Sports Communications Director at UGA.
“When you see these kids, the fight they have, the passion they have; some have tubes in their arms, some have no hair and you would think that for a Georgia football player might be a kind of nervous moment where they’re so fragile I don’t want to hurt them,” Colquitt said.
But he says that first impression is quickly dispelled.
“Inside of a minute, two minutes, you learn right away they’re kids, and they want to have a good time, they want to play. They’ve got so much passion, so much energy, so much desire to be a child you cannot keep up with them. We leave from down there with an even greater spirit than with we went down with.”
He says UGA has been involved since Vince Dooley was head coach. Coach Kirby Smart has also visited the camp, and he has personal ties to the facility.
“Coach Smart has a brother who dealt with cancer as a child and was a camper at Camp Sunshine.”
Colquitt says that during a former visit, the head football coach read a letter from his brother which shared a moving memory from his time at the camp.
“Karl, his brother, had written a letter for Coach Smart to read in front of the assembly and when he was done there was hardly a dry eye in the place, just talking about what a special place Camp Sunshine is and what it meant to him.”
Coach Kirby Smart and members of the team visited older campers last week.
