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Buccaneer gives youth a more wordly view

Tampa Bay linebacker Derrick Brooks rewards 33 students with an eye-opening trip to South Africa.

By BRIAN WHITE
Published June 11, 2005

[Times photo: Michael Rondou]

Tampa Bay Buccaneer Derrick Brooks gets a big hug Friday from Maurice Walker, 18, of Tampa, one of the Brooks Bunch. Brooks and his group of students were welcomed home with a reception at the Tampa Airport Marriott.

	[Photo by Matt May]
	Brooks is drawn onto the dance floor while touring the Lesedi Village cultural park outside Johannesburg, South Africa, on June 3.

TAMPA - For 33 students who went to South Africa with Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Derrick Brooks, the best part of the trip was the kindness of strangers.

That, and getting to watch a leopard devour a warthog.

The teenagers all belong to the Brooks Bunch, an organization founded by Brooks during his rookie season in 1995. They left May 31 for the 10-day drip, which took them to Cape Town, Johannesburg and the South African bush.

The students visited with South Africans their age, took a 9-mile bike ride to the Cape of Good Hope and viewed the cell where Nelson Mandela was kept a political prisoner for 27 years before his 1990 release.

Tiffany Bright, 18, said she was impressed by how far South Africa has come since apartheid ended and the first democratic government was elected in 1994. She said it seemed that people were woking hard to fix divisions, comparing the progress with the U.S. civil rights movement.

"Eleven years out of the civil rights movement, we weren't nearly as unified as they are," said Bright, who graduated from King High School in Tampa this year and will be attending Howard University in the fall.

Melissa Norton, 18, said she was thrilled by the children they met. She was amazed by "how much love they gave us."

"They sang for us, they danced for us," said the 18-year-old, who wants to major in education at the University of South Florida or Saint Leo University.

Nick Haetteman, 14, said seeing the way others lived in a poor country helped him appreciate what he has at home.

"We saw what they have and how much better we have it than them," said Haetteman, who begins ninth grade at Riverview High School in Brandon next year.

But it was the four-day safari into the bush that made the biggest impression on most of the students. They traveled in Land Rovers from the Sabi-Sabi safari camp and slept in lodges.

Almost everyone mentioned the safari's third day, when they saw a leopard chase down and kill a warthog "probably 5 feet away," Haetteman said. They spent several hours watching the predator eat its meal.

The Brooks Bunch program draws members from local Boys and Girls Clubs. The trip to South Africa was a reward for those who maintained high grades.

"I think every kid obviously saw something that is going to change their lives," said Brooks, a seven-time Pro Bowler.

Several parents credited the program and the Boys and Girls Clubs with helping keep their kids off the street and in class.

"It was the three of us," said Barbara Smith, whose son Corey went on the trip.

"God Almighty, the parents and Derrick Brooks."

Brian White can be reached at bwhite@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 11, 2005, 00:25:17]