STUDENTS RECEIVE SCHOLARSHIPS FROM CHICAGO FOOTBALL CLASSIC

Chicago Football Classic Founders, Everett Rand and Larry Huggins, awarded $100,000 in scholarships to 21 recipients from monies raised as part of the Classic, which will not take place this year due to COVID-19. Photo by Tia Carol Jones
Chicago Football Classic Founders, Everett Rand and Larry Huggins, awarded $100,000 in scholarships to 21 recipients from monies raised as part of the Classic, which will not take place this year due to COVID-19. Photo by Tia Carol Jones

Students receive scholarships from Chicago Football Classic

BY TIA CAROL JONES

Larry Huggins and Everett Rand created the Chicago Football Classic more than 20 years ago with the goal of exposing young people in Chicago to the Black college experience through football games, band battles and college fairs.

This year, the Classic will not take place due to COVID-19, but Chicago Football Classic and Christmas in the Wards provided scholarships and laptop computers to students going to Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Scholarship recipients included students from Morgan Park High School, Kenwood Academy, Urban Prep Bronzeville, University of Chicago Woodlawn, Whitney Young High School, Lindblom Academy, Westinghouse College Prep, King College Prep, Providence St. Mel, De La Salle Institute and Lane Tech.

Each of the 21 students received $5,000 and a laptop. Rand and Huggins were joined by Tom Ricketts, Chicago Cubs chairman, and Tim Lefever, of Solider Field, who are both board members of Christmas in the Wards.

Julian Green, of the Chicago Cubs, spoke about his experience as a first generation college graduate.

“For a young kid, from the South Side of Chicago, being able to go to Birmingham, and be[ing] able to go to Selma, and down to Mobile and [being able to] go to the church where the four little girls perished, and being able to experience that history firsthand instead of reading about it in a textbook,” Green advised, “learn that history, because it’s your history.” He added, “Not only be great students to earn your education and major in your discipline, but be students of the movement and find out how the movement started.” Green also said students should figure out how to be a part of continuing that history. “Make sure you’re learning about that history as you’re matriculating to the highways and byways on the hills of Normal, Alabama, or in Mississippi or Florida, because it is [a] great history,” Green stated. “It’s our history. It’s your history, so make sure you pay attention to it. Make sure you add your fingerprint on the legacy of it in terms of how we go forward in the 21st century.”

Although there will not be a game this year, a golf outing will take place to raise money for more scholarships. It will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 22, at Harborside Golf Course, located at 11001 S. Doty Ave.

“I can guarantee you that this time next year, we’ll be able to give away more than just $100,000 in scholarships to students going to HBCUs,” Huggins said.

Huggins said every student that received a scholarship was nominated by a corporation doing major business in the city of Chicago.

“That is why we’ve been able to have this game now for 23 years and that’s why with the help of you guys and the corporations, we will continue [to] have the game for another 23 years,” he said. “At the end of the day, it is about what we can do to make sure our kids are exposed to the importance of seeking higher education and anything we can do to make that happen, is our ultimate goal with the Chicago Football Classic.”

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