I went to the Bahamas this past weekend to help Alex Smith, TE for the Tampa Bay Bucs with his 3rd annual kids' football camp. A bunch of guys came like Stephen Cooper, Greg Camarillo, and Stan Wilson - just to name a few. It's important for me to always give back because I believe good things happen to good people. Alex is doing a great thing by trying to expose the Bahamian kids to football to try and get them another out and help them have successful lives. There are currently 4 Bahamian football players in the league: Alex Smith, Devard Darling, Samari Rolle,and D'Brickashaw Ferguson. Not bad for a small lil island. These guys all come back every year and raise money for the kids to help them with life skills as well as physical skills and learning the game that we all love.

The great thing about doing this camp in the Bahamas is that it leaves time for play after all the work. I did a bunch of cool things such as ride the water slides, ride wave runners, and party the night away. All in all I had a great time seeing a bunch of old friends and helping out the kids. Everyone was great... except the staff at the hotel we stayed at -- The Cove on Paradise Island. And I thought the food sucked at my hotel, too. Didn't stop us from having a great time, though.

Well, it's almost that time for the season to start. I get a lil more excited every day.

SP

This was the 2nd year for my football camp in my hometown - Willingboro, NJ. About 150 kids ages 14 to 18 showed up for the camp from all the surrounding schools. It was a free camp to help kids with the fundamentals of football and also to give them hope and show them that if I can do it so can they. 1st of all I gotta give gatorade, nike, sports paradise, willingboro high school, and kareem mckenzie (starting right tackle for the superbowl champs) for helping out and believing in the same cause. much love. I'm going 2 do this for many years to come and make sure it gets bigger and bigger every year. My goal is to actually help these kids on and off the field.

I think they gotta stop somewhere with this. I love that everyone is making money but its starting to get rediculous how much money unproven players are getting before they take a snap. There are future hall of famers that are not making as much in there entire carrier as these kids are making in one check. I think the nfl should take some notes from the nba on caping rookies. If you think about it most rookies don't really come into there own until 4th our 5th yr anyway. So just imagen how much there second contract will b if they where 2 play there whole 50mil contract out it makes u wanna laugh huh. My final note is more power to them cause I want everyone to get all the money in the world cause imma get mine.

Sp95

What's goin on, Yardbarkers? Just dropping by for a minute to let you know about a program I've been involved with for a while now call After-School All-Stars. Last year I donated $1,000to them for every sack I made and ended up giving $8500. In an hour or so I'll be at an event here in SD, handing over a check to this great program. Check out the link, it'll take you to a radio interview I did yesterday where I talk about today's event.

I'll be bringing my camera along today, so hopefully I'll have some footage up here soon for ya'll to see. I'm planning on doing a lot more video posts in general, so let me know if you have any good ideas for those.

SP

shaunphillips.net

I'm on my way back from Cabo from a business seminar. It was crazy and I learned a lot about how money works. I also learned a lot about being 26 and in a spring break environment. I was sitting in club after club watching these lil kids go crazy, and thinking back 2 when I used 2 go crazy like that. Those were the good days.

On a side note, there were a lot of good pickups around the league, and a lot of money being tossed around. Free agency is a great thing because when you're one of the premier players in the league teams have 2 pay a premium for you. They hate it but it is what it is. Some players get overpaid, some players get underpaid. At the end of the day, it's all about what your peers think of you. The money is great but the respect of you peers will last a lot longer than your money because you never know what can happen.

Seeing all the NFL gossip in the news has me eagerly awaiting the offseason workout because then I know that the season is getting a lil closer. That's all I have for you guys. Feel free to ask me some questions. I'm in town for a few days so ill be able answer. God bless and vote Obama in '08.

-SP

I'm excited for Mike Turner. He is a back in this league that could have been starting since his rookie year. He finally got his big payday that he has been waiting for. He will be a good fit in the ATL. He's a strong power every-down back with the speed to take it the distance. His only downfall is that the Falcons play the Chargers this year and we are going to break his facemask.

While I was in the gym yesterday, I was interrupted by an ESPN story on ballers being targets of crime. In my opinion, I believe this is something that the world needs to know, but I also feel that airing a story like that does nothing but give the so-called thugs a new idea. It seems as if everything is a big copycat. For example, the whole Columbine thing. Next thing you know stories like that and false alarms were popping up everywhere. It seems like whenever people get an idea off TV they try and take it and run with it. I can be completely wrong, but this is how I feel.

I'm not comparing Columbine with pro players being jacked, I'm just saying I feel that this is something the leagues should bring to the attention of their teams. I personally was close to being a victim a few weeks ago, but fortunately for me, I usually go out with security or a big group of friends, and they took care of the situation for me. This is the real deal. Guys target ballers because we seem like easy targets, but what are we to do? Hide in our house and never come out?

I believe that we just have to walk by faith and try as hard as possible to not put ourselves in vulnerable situations. For example, always travel in packs or with security. Try and live in a gated community. If it's possible, definitely have a security alarm on your house, and finally, pray everyday. This will definitely not stop a jacker from getting you, but it's a step in the right direction to protect yourself.

It just sucks that the world comes to this. People are robbing people that they watch on TV with their mom, dad, kids and friends (and brag about what they did). If you were to go to the swap meet in LA, you can see several celebrities' chains, rings, watches, etc. This just baffles me that people are that ignorant.

I come from nothing and did my share of dirt in my life to eat. But I never in my life harmed another hard-working honest man with a family because you not only fuck up your life and his life, you fuck up your family, his family and all the people around you.

I just hope that people put down the guns and try and do better for themselves than to be out robbing and killing for a couple hundred bucks. If you feel that you need to eat and you wanna kill for your meals, then go to the Army and do you, your family, my family, and your country, some justice.

Spizzel

Shaunphillips.net

Thanks again for tuning into another SP experience. Imma start with how much fun I had in AZ. Some of the things I was able to do is party with Larry Johnson off the Chiefs, Kendra Wilkinson of the hit show Girls Next Door, and see all my old homies from college. I got a chance to dance on stage with Soulja Boy for espn, yoooooooooooo!!!! So all in all it was a great trip and I had hella fun.

I know this is kinda of late but I'm happy the way the Super Bowl turned out. The team that wanted it the most won the game. I will never take anything away from the Pats - they played a great game, but the G-men looked hungry out there. Next stop: Vegas. Gotta hit the magic conventions. Any clothing or apparal designers out there who want me wearing your gear holla at me.

SP for Pres. '08

A game like this only comes along once in your career. It's so important that you stay focused on seizing the moment. I try and ease my mind of thinking about the game but its impossible, I just can't stop thinking about kicking some ass.



LT reads us a poem before every season. The name of the poem is "The Inner Voice". Everytime I think about it I get gassed up and ready to fight lol. The bottom line is that I'm ready for Sunday. And I know that my team is also. So tune in, it's going to be a dog fight (no offense Vick).

"Every athlete has an inner voice of pride.

It is the voice only athletes can hear, pushing them to the brink of exhaustion, demanding excellence and condemning failure.

Failure, understand is the driving force behind athletes.

Every athlete has experienced failure and now train so they will not experience it again...

So when failure laughs in my face as I try to earn the respect of that last repetition, it must realize...

each time I train, I not only hear, I answer ...

the inner voice."

SP

I'm on the plane trying stay calm because I feel like I wanna go rip somebody's head off. I can't think of nothing that I would rather be doing than playing football on Sunday. This will be a fun game. The stage is set - we are the underdogs going into a hostile environment where no one expects us to win except us.

Everywhere you turn it's "there is no way the Chargers can do it","they're in over the heads", "they are lucky to even be on the same field as the Colts". That's the kind of stuff that makes the game more fun and exciting.

I think the game will come down to defense. It's all about whose D plays the best. We are not expecting to see number 18 throw 6 interceptions again, though it would be great if that could happen again. The fact of the matter is we have to play 60 min of football in order to beat this team and me and the guys are all fired up. The hard part right now is relaxing and bottling up all of our energy so we can let it all out on Sunday.

Talk to you guys next week.

SP

I'm excited that I get to post my first blog on Yardbarker. The season is now at a close for most teams and we are coming off our first playoff win in 13 years. It seems as if everyone in the world is more excited about our win than us. Maybe it's because we know that winning 1 playoff game is not the goal...the goal is to be that team standing in Feb. That is the only team that's going to be happy at the end of the day.

I see a different mind set from me and from every one of my teammates this year. Guys seem a lot more hungry this year as opposed to last year. I think it's because we are realizing that next year is not promised, so why not take care of business this year. Well now it's time for me to get back to studying film on the Colts. Leave me a comment if you have any questions or just wanna say hey.

Go Chargers

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