Lelito's Work Helps St Clair Athletes Play
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
May 31, 2017
If not for sports, Tim Lelito isn’t sure he would have finished high school.
Now that he’s entering his fifth season in the National Football League, Lelito is doing what he can to make sure kids in St. Clair County don’t have to worry about that.
The Lelito Legacy Foundation has teamed with the Community Foundation of St. Clair County to grant $9,000 for county schools to cover athletic participation fees for students in need.
“I used sports as a vehicle for where I am now – to get to college and get through high school,” the 2007 St. Clair High School graduate said. “If I didn’t have sports, I don’t think I would have graduated high school at all. School wasn’t a priority; the horses that my grandparents raised were the priority, because that was our livelihood.
“Making it to college and being the first one in my family to graduate with a degree, sports was that vehicle for me to get that degree, and that really hit home with me.”
Five St. Clair County community partners were able to raise $4,500, and Lelito’s foundation matched. The funds will be able to cover participation fees for 116 students at St. Clair County high schools and middle schools during the 2017-18 school year.
The Port Huron Schools Endowment Fund, East China School District Athletic Boosters and PTOs, the Community Foundation of St. Clair County’s Youth Advisory Council and its Marysville Community Fund, and the Capac Adolescents Preventing Abuse and Crime (CAPAC) Fund were the five partners.
“It’s exciting to see someone who is not only successful and has come back to help his hometown, but he’s so humble about it,” Community Foundation Vice President Jackie Hanton said. “When we were in our meetings, it’s not about Tim. It’s that he has this vision to help kids who are like him.”
Lelito was a mauling all-state offensive lineman at St. Clair, paving the way for the team’s option attack. He was also an all-state thrower on the Saints’ track & field team.
Playing sports required a participation fee, something Lelito’s grandparents handled, even if they struggled to do so.
“When I was younger, my grandparents raised racehorses, and money was tight for a while,” Lelito said. “My grandparents put my brother and I in sports, and we always played sports. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I was older. They were pinching pennies together and taking care of us before taking care of their needs.”
Lelito earned a scholarship to Grand Valley State University, where – after redshirting as a freshman and being forced to take a medical redshirt his second year – he started 45 straight games and was named Offensive Lineman of the Year by the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 2012.
He was signed by the New Orleans Saints as an undrafted free agent in 2013, and worked his way into the rotation almost immediately, seeing action in 63 games during his four years in New Orleans and starting 24 games, including 13 in 2015.
This past offseason, Lelito signed a free-agent deal with the Tennessee Titans.
Throughout his NFL career, Lelito has given back, both to his hometown and his professional town. He has conducted free football camps for St. Clair County kids for the past few years.
“He’s just a young man that I’ve continued to be impressed with how grounded he’s remained,” Bill Nesbitt, Lelito’s football coach at St. Clair, said. “He understands the big picture. His success is not just in playing at that level, but in helping others. That’s his great success.”
Funds for the participation fees will be given to the school districts in St. Clair County, and the schools will be tasked with selecting students most in need. In future years, Lelito hopes to help schools purchase equipment for kids in need, and eventually he wants his foundation to reach more than just athletes.
“My foundation isn’t just for kids in sports, it’s for underprivileged youth,” Lelito said. “I think moving forward, in the next five years, I want to be able to take care of a lot of kids in a very broad spectrum – in sports and arts and other extracurricular activities.”
That will take funding, but Lelito said he has found generous donors in St. Clair County.
“That’s why I bought a house here,” he said. “I love it here. I love the people; they’ll give you the shirt off their back. That’s why I wanted to put roots down here.”
With his efforts, Lelito is doing all he can to make it an even better place to call home. Nesbitt believes the funds could be the difference in playing sports as opposed to sitting out for some students, which he hopes will have a lasting effect.
“I think it definitely can have a positive impact that way,” Nesbitt said. “Hopefully, in a larger, greater, grander sense, these kids who are participants could one day give back themselves. If they are able to go on and have some success, maybe they could remember that somebody had helped them out and do the same.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Tennessee Titans offensive lineman Tim Lelito watches an athlete work out during a camp he conducts in the St. Clair area. (Middle) Lelito during his high school career at St. Clair. (Below) Lelito, middle, has worked this offseason to help pay participation fees for athletes in need of financial assistance. (Top and below photos courtesy of the Port Huron Times Herald.)
'Unknown' Suits Whitmore Lake Well
October 11, 2019
By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half
WHITMORE LAKE – The move to a new athletic conference has put some renewed energy into the Whitmore Lake football team and has the Trojans thinking playoffs for the first time in years.
Whitmore Lake, a Class C school on the northern edge of Washtenaw County, moved to the Michigan Independent Athletic Conference this season after 46 years in the Tri-County Conference. It was a big move for the school, which hoped to inject some enthusiasm into its student-athletes, including a football program that was lagging in numbers and had made the playoffs just once during the last decade.
“I feel pretty good about the buzz and excitement that is going on,” said fourth-year Whitmore Lake head coach Brian Boron. “There’s definitely a resurgence with a lot of new things.”
Four-year starting offensive tackle Alex Williams noticed the change soon after Whitmore Lake announced the move from the TCC to the MIAC after last football season.
“I feel like interest in football picked up a lot more,” said Williams. “Being a captain, you see it in school. The eighth graders will come up to you and talk about football. We had more people in our weight room all winter. The culture has definitely changed.”
The first year in a new conference has brought all sorts of new experiences to the football team, both for players, coaches and fans.
“Do we miss the TCC? Absolutely. We were one of the founding teams,” Boron said. “We miss being part of that history and tradition.
“From a win-loss standpoint, things are going well. But this year I also have 12 seniors on the team, by far the most of any team I’ve had in my four years here. Are we competitive more because of that, or because of the new league? I don’t know.”
Whitmore Lake beat Auburn Hills Oakland Christian 62-33 last Friday to improve to 4-2 on the season. Its only losses were nonleague games to undefeated and state-ranked Royal Oak Shrine Catholic and Ann Arbor Father Gabriel Richard. Against Shrine, the Trojans fumbled three times; and against Richard, Whitmore Lake thought it had tied the game late in the contest, but a 2-point conversion was called back and the Trojans didn’t convert on the next attempt.
Several teams on Whitmore Lake’s schedule are first-time opponents, including Sterling Heights Parkway Christian, Auburn Hills Oakland Christian and Friday’s opponent, Southfield Christian.
Senior running back Evan Romeo, a 1,000-yard rusher as a sophomore, is enjoying a big senior season as well.
“Evan is having a great year,” Boron said. “Last year he missed five games with a hamstring pull.”
Logan Kurth, Cole Henning and Evan Vaughn are other backfield mates, and the quarterback is Zach Brady.
“He doesn’t get a lot of credit, but he’s the architect of the whole thing,” Boron said of Brady. “He makes it go. Every game we have a referee or member of the chain gang come tell us that they can’t find the ball because Zach is doing such a great job with his fakes.”
Whitmore Lake’s biggest win this season came against Oakland Christian, which came into the game 4-1. The Trojans appear to be on a league title-deciding collision course with Week 9 opponent Livonia Clarenceville, also undefeated in the MIAC. Whitmore Lake’s last league championship in football came in 2002.
“In this league, we are playing against teams with 18 or 19 kids on the varsity, just like us,” Boron said. “When I took the program over, we had maybe 17 kids in the entire program. They aren’t great numbers, but now we are closer to 30. I’m hoping to add more.”
In making the move last fall, Whitmore Lake Superintendent Tom DeKeyser said it had become apparent that, at least in some sports, the Trojans were not competing at the same level as other TCC schools.
“We have built a lot of great relationships in the TCC,” DeKeyser said. “But our coaches and athletes are excited to try something different.”
Everyone in Trojans camp hopes that “different” translates into more student-athletes.
“We had 10 or 12 freshmen come out this year, some who had never played football before,” Boron said. “That’s been a good thing. We’re not sure about next year, how many kids we’ll get up from our youth program. We’ll have to see. The team having success, I believe, will help that.”
One thing Boron has found is that the move is demanding on the coaching staff, which has a whole new set of opponents for which to prepare. It used to be one or two new teams would join the schedule. This year, nearly all of the Trojans’ opponents are new.
“No other team in our league runs the ‘T’ which means we don’t see how anyone is going to defend it on film,” Boron said. “We kind of rep everything because we don’t know how they are going to line up against us. We’re still getting a feel for these other teams. It’s fun. As coaches, we watch a lot of film. We have to be able to adjust and be ready for just about anything.”
The Trojans already have scored more points than any team it has fielded since 2008, which is the last time Whitmore Lake finished with a winning record. The 2013 team made the playoffs but finished 5-5 after a first-round loss. That 2008 season capped the greatest football era in school history, when Whitmore Lake made the playoffs seven times during an eight-year span.
Boron isn’t making predictions for Whitmore Lake’s future just yet. There are still a lot of unknowns.
“Everybody is still trying to figure things out,” he said. “We will sometimes get to a school a half-hour or 45 minutes early because we are unsure of the traffic patterns still. Teams get to our school way early some weeks for the same reason.
“I think it’s a good thing for the future of football at Whitmore Lake. The unknown is exciting.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTO: Whitmore Lake now-senior running back Evan Romeo breaks into the open. (Photo courtesy of the Whitmore Lake football program.)