Sam Hubbard Foundation
- Aiden Cho
- May 31, 2022
- 3 min read
5/31/22
The NFL is America’s premier sports league, bringing in millions of viewers all over the country to watch the best of the best battle out. Many NFL players are “mini-celebrities” with massive platforms and public voices, a phenomenon that has only been enhanced by social media.
But every year, as the NFL playoffs roll around, the whole country tunes in, and some players capitalize on the publicity for charitable causes. In this year's playoffs, various players made waives in initiatives. Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp released a collage-designed T-shirt for Rams fans to buy and wear before the Superbowl. The proceeds for the shirts would go to Team Rubicon, a charity that aids veterans in humanitarian crises. Bengals running back Samaje Perine who scored a massive 41-yard touchdown to beat the Kansas City Cheifs sold t-shirts with proceeds going towards paying for a student athlete’s scholarship at his old high school.
However, the most long-term and notable Super Bowl-leveraged philanthropic endeavor came from the Bengals defensive end Sam Hubbard. He founded the Sam Hubbard Foundation, dedicated to food insecurity. Hubbard became a local hero after being drafted by the Bengals out of nearby Moeller High School.
Following the T-shirt fundraising trend, Hubbard took to social media to promote his cause dubbed “Ohio Fed”. The collection included various uniquely designed T-shirts, with the profits made going to the foundation and the Freestore Foodbank to provide “over 37 million meals per year to residents in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.”
Hubbard also worked to unite his community. This month, he hosted his annual “fowling” tournament, a mixture of football and bowling, where contestants roll a football towards bowling pins. The event raised 47,000 dollars for events like his free football camps and Thanksgiving food drive. Hubbard's continuous acts of service earned him the 2021 Walter Payton Man of the Year Award.
Even as far back as his rookie year in 2018, he raised 30,000 dollars for football camps as a way to give back to the community that he felt lucky to stay near.
The foundation chooses to serve in the food insecurity field because it is "an area that really has a lot of need.” One in seven people are facing food insecurity. Hubbard highlighted seeing a local news story of a food bank, called Freestore Foodbank, having only a 2 weeks supply remaining. Urgently, Hubbard raised $85,000 for the organization, which he continues to partner with. In total, the foundation estimates they have raised $160,000 in that initial campaign.
Their actions also inspired action in the community as the Southwest Local School District began a fundraiser of its own to combat hunger in the district. They originally aimed to raise $9,400 in tribute to Hubbard wearing number 94, but donations exceeded $31,000, surpassing its goal in just 48 hours.
Hubbard's actions reflect football’s positive impacts on those that are lucky enough to reach the top. It would be easy for such successful players like Hubbard who are paid millions to sit on their wealth and simply bask in the glory and prestige of being an NFL player. However, as is often seen, so many NFL players choose to give back to their communities and the nation as a whole. Matt Kittel, director of the foundation cites that Hubbard accounted, “'I'm from here. I'm a part of this community. This community helped me get here. It's only right that I kind of turn around and give back to them.” This strong connection and feeling of owing one’s community may have stemmed from growing up playing football. As youth players don their town’s names on their jerseys at every practice, nearly every day of their football-oriented childhoods, emotional connections are made from player to community. Football offers those like Hubbard to interact, represent, and play for their towns and people. Football connects players with their communities, and football players like Hubbard reflect that giving spirit of football back into his town.
Works Cited
Dean, Jeff. "Some players use their Super Bowl platform to make a super impact in their community." NPR, 12 Feb. 2022, www.npr.org/2022/02/12/1080228771/some-players-use-their-super-bowl-platform-to-make-a-super-impact-in-their-commu.
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