Gamecock gets versed in Pigskin Poets
Carolina linebacker Cody Wells might not have known quite what to expect when he showed up for his first Pigskin Poets program at Richland County Public Library in Columbia this past summer.
But he needn't have worried – he was in good hands with Wilhelm Elliott, if only figuratively. Actually, Wilhelm, a 4 1/2-year-old who was attending his fifth Pigskin Poets, wound up in the arms of his favorite player, Wells.
“It’s good to know he’s a little diehard Gamecock fan.”
“He was really nice. He picked Wilhelm up and carried him around,” Wilhelm’s mother, Dianna, a 1981 Carolina graduate, said of Wells.
“At first he was really a shy kid, but toward the middle, I was sitting next to him reading, playing a game with him, and he started opening up a bit and talking,” said Wells, a junior psychology major from Belleview, Fla., who is in his second year of eligibility with the Gamecocks. “As I walked around, he came up to me and thanked me. He was a cute little kid and had a great personality. It’s good to know he’s a little diehard Gamecock fan.”
In its eighth year, Pigskin Poets uses the lure of ever-popular football players to help promote literacy and RCPL’s Summer Reading Club. This year’s event attracted 300 children. “This partnership between USC and RCPL allows the players to emphasize that reading is fun and important, as well as the fact that children can read books about any subject that interests them,” said Ginger Shuler, the library’s chief of Youth Services.
“We’ve always been at the library, and we’ve always been involved with the University,” said Dianna Elliott, whose husband, Thomas, has his undergraduate and law degrees from Carolina, the latter in 1977. “My son has always enjoyed reading and being read to. Anytime you involve football players, he wants to be in the middle of it.”
Indeed, for an autograph hounds like young Wilhelm, it’s the highlight of the year. “He wanted to get every signature,” she said. “I would ask, ‘Do you have that person’s signature?’ He’d say, ‘I don’t know,’ but he knows the number. I’d tell him the number, and he’d say yes he did or no he didn’t.
“There was a lady from the library talking to us near end, and he tugged on me and said, ‘Mom, Mom, No. 87 is walking out the door and I don’t have his signature.’ I asked the lady to excuse me, because obviously it was important. He literally got every signature in the place. It was just a great time for him.”
Team Gamecocks sponsors Pigskin Poets as one of about 150 annual philanthropic or outreach endeavors, covering thousands of volunteer hours. Team Gamecocks is part of an NCAA-mandated CHAMPS/Life Skills programs, which promotes and helps student-athletes with academics, career and personal development, and volunteerism. Carolina’s program has been so successful that it is one of only 29 schools in the nation to earn the NCAA distinction of Program of Excellence.
“When there’s a good cause in Columbia, we’re usually involved in some manner,” said Collin Crick coordinator of the CHAMPS and Team Gamecocks programs. “The coaches are very supportive, and it’s a lot of fun for the students, too.” Because of student-athletes’ busy schedules, participation is not mandatory, but Crick says they almost always step up when asked to help. About 30 football players attend the Pigskin Poets event.
Wells, for one, sounds like he’ll be back next year. “People in the past say they enjoyed it, and I wanted to experience it for myself, to give back to the community for all the support they give us,” he said. “I definitely enjoyed it. You get to interact with the kids, read to them, walk around and meet with them, and, at the end, sign autographs. It’s pretty wild.”