Cal football expands community outreach with Golden Buddies Football Clinic

As Cal football’s offseason is quickly coming to an end, the team took a break from its summer training schedule to welcome around 80 children and their families to the first-ever Golden Buddies Football Clinic. Saturday’s camp at California Memorial Stadium was led by offensive lineman Matthew Cindric and outside linebacker Myles Williams, along with over 40 more Cal football players. The Bears in attendance helped out at various football and game day related drills for children aged 6-13 both with and without intellectual disabilities.
“Growing up, I saw a lot of divide and a lot of physical exclusion between both communities,” said Williams, whose parents are adaptive physical education teachers. “So the main goal (for today) was getting kids together and casting them as one big group and not trying to compartmentalize them into separate groups.”
The cause is also close to Cindric’s heart. The senior’s community service started in high school, and he has since organized a number of similar events for children with disabilities and special needs, including events with the organization Athletes for Kids. In fact, Cindric said that an event such as this, where he gets to give back to the community, played a large role in his decision to stay for a sixth year at Cal.
The event was organized in collaboration with the Cameron Institute and Special Olympics of Northern California. The Cameron Institute, which focuses on student-athlete development, helped provide financial and organizational support for the athletes. Special Olympics of Northern California helped organize adaptive drills and advertise the event to its regular attendees in the area. The day was free for all children involved.
Kicking off in the late morning with some stretching exercises, the children split across six different stations around the field each manned by the football players. The activities ranged from throwing and receiving to a “game day minds” station focused on positive mindsets.
“I was able to teach them … proper technique and just actively connect with them, not only getting active, but also connect with them on a personal level — finding out their interests, their hobbies, being their friend,” said Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who led the throwing station. “I made a lot of new friends today.”
Behind any great football event is a captivating halftime performance. Saturday was no different, and this was Cindric’s favorite moment of the day. The break featured the special teams unit rocketing pigskins through the uprights, the quarterback tossing 50-yarders to the receivers and the cheerleading squad leading a chant, giving the kids a close-up look at collegiate level football talent.
Once activities restarted, players continued to work with campers with adaptivity and inclusivity in mind. From sitting down on the field to meet the kids at their eye level, to celebrating as if they scored a touchdown whenever one of the children caught a football, the players demonstrated a level of empathy that was palpable throughout the stadium.
E-Sports, one of the groups involved in organizing the event — “e” stands for “exceptional” — met with the players before the event to discuss how to interact with and include children with different kinds of needs or disabilities.
“We want to challenge them to the point where they feel like they’re called to grow, but not to the point where they get discouraged that they can’t do it,” said Ray Kim, the director of E-Hoops in the program, who was also present to assist the student-athletes. “Coming out on a large field in a large venue like this, there’s so (much) stimulation and some kids can be overstimulated by all the sensory issues. And so we had to walk them through, how do you do timeouts? How do you do breaks?”
Additionally, to mitigate the heat and exhaustion from the stations, the event also featured a “safe zone,” set up in the shadiest and least-stimulating area of the stadium. This was a safe space for children to go to in order to get a break from the day’s events and self-regulate.
“There were actually quite a number of individuals who needed a break, they needed a one-on-one. One of the players would come and hang out with them … and then they were ready to go and try something new,” Kim said. “That was pretty crucial for a number of the kids who had more severe disabilities.”
With the inaugural Golden Buddies Football Clinic being a resounding success, Cindric and Williams hope to organize more of these events in the future. The pair wants to continue working with the Cameron Institute to improve outreach efforts and community events. Though Cindric enters his final season of eligibility at Cal, he sees Williams carrying the community work torch for the years to come.
“One of the reasons I wanted to bring (Williams) on was to have someone who has a few more years left at Cal, so that this could not only be a one time thing, but happen every year,” Cindric said.
Williams himself feels up to the task, citing Cindric’s leadership throughout the planning process as a huge help to himself and the event.
“Hopefully Golden Buddies Two, coming up next July,” Cindric said.