“Heads Up,” Former Bills Safety Preaches Importance of ‘Smart Football’ to Local Area Youth

Mark Kelso, former Bills defensive-back and current color analyst for the Buffalo Bills Radio Network, made his way to Bergman Park Friday evening to speak before an assiduous group of players and parents at the 2015 Westside Panthers pep-rally.

Judging by their reception, his message will not soon be forgotten.

Listed at 5-foot-11, 180 pounds in his playing days, Kelso was a small, hard-nosed defensive player in the 90’s who’s notoriously known for wearing a large, padded, concussion-reducing “ProCap” on top of his Buffalo Bills helmet. With eight NFL seasons under his belt, the 52-year-old who is now 22 years removed from the game now realizes how important it is to teach proper technique to the up and coming generation.

“I do it as a representative of the NFL and the Heads Up Program,” said Kelso, commenting on what ultimately brought him here to Jamestown. “I’ve spoken to youth organizations all over Western New York… any opportunity there is to talk to kids about playing the game safely, and playing the game successfully, is important to me.”

Kelso, who ultimately made four consecutive superbowl appearances in his career, knows exactly what it takes to be successful on the field. Drawing from his experience, he had just three pieces of advice for the aspiring young athletes: play hard, play smart and play together.

“The first thing u have to do in football is play hard, said Kelso. What is worthwhile is difficult… If something is worthwhile ur gonna have to expend the effort to achievethe goal.

“The second thing u have to do is play smart, because strength doesn’t always win… strong and smart strength does.

Finally, Play together. If u have 11 guys on youur team and all 11 guys are trying to do the same thing, its not gonna work out for u.

Play hard, play smart and play together.

The heads up football program is a coordination between usa football, which is 1 of the national governing bodies of youth football. usa football has an alignment with the nfl; the heads up football program is an opportunity and a desire on the part of the nfl and usa football to make sureyoung players are playing the game the right way.

“When you tackle people u need to make sure that u really focus on what ur hitting with, the front part of ur shoulder. I want to put my shoulder on the strikezone, which is always the breaste plate or the knee or thigh. my heads not going to be anywhere near.

don’t watch nfl guys do it cuz they don’t know how to tackle joked the guy. They just dive in there with their heads, the don’t use their arms. God gave each of u 2 arms if u have arms ug otta use them.

played with the best shane conlin cornereous bennit brice smith Darryl talley they were nasty Itwasa lot of fun I have teammates allover the country that I can call up today and it will be just like I talked ot them yesterday in the locker room. That’s the really cool thing about playing sports whether its youth sports or college sports or pro sports. Everybody doesn’t get a chance to play I was blessed to play. I worked really hard but some good things had to happen too for me to get the opportunit.

U just keep working as hard as u can if that’s something u want to do then sometimes if u get a chance to play in hs or college u never know, just see how far it can take u.

Al the ksills u can develop playing the game are gong to take u a lot farther than just the game of football. When u retire I was 30 when I retired. That was22 years ago that’s a long time. U gotta have something else u want to do besides play football. Maybe its coach maybe its teach maybe its all of those things. But u gotta have something else too.

Fo the last 10 years I do the radio broadcast. If u listen to a radio broadcast ur listening to mr murphy and me. When I left the bills the year I left I didn’t go back for 6 years because I wanted to do something else. I didn’talways want to be an explayer I wante to be mr kelso theteacher. Not the ex player. Its ok to be an ex player but I wanted to be something else too. I didn’t want to be that for the rest of my life.

I only played for 8 seasons in thenfl. Ive beenworking in education abd broadcasting and racing for 22 years.

Biggest guy I talked bellfromoakland 6 2 275 poundtailback he was big.bojackson I tackeldboawhole bunchof times. I wore 38 for the bills how many times u see the bo jakcson pspecial. U ever see 38 getting runned over no? I tacked him every single time. Sometimes it hurt but I tackled him.

I tacked barry many times hardest to tackle extremely strong extremely qick if he wanted to drop shoulder and overpower u he could. If he decided not to he would make u miss. No1 like barry I played against. Walkter payton Erick Dickerson no1 as great as berry.