Bevy of Tigers headed to Brooklyn to help with Elite V Showcase

Clemson football alum Pat Godfrey speaks to the campers at last year's Showcase.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Fri May 05 07:00:15 GMT-04:00 2023

Dabo Swinney makes sure that all his players understand that giving back to the community and making a difference in that community, is a cornerstone of his program. Several former players are meeting in Brooklyn this weekend to do just that.

Former offensive lineman Pat Godfrey is spearheading this weekend’s Elite V Showcase, which will be held Saturday from 8 am until 4 pm at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. The Showcase, which started in New York in 2020, looks to not only help high school athletes on the field, but also provide academic support, SAT programming, and fostering a network that will create job opportunities after football. The camp is sponsored by and players are allowed to attend free of charge thanks to About U Outreach.

Godfrey, who played at Clemson from 2015-18, is from Long Island and currently works in business development at a stock exchange in Lower Manhattan. The idea to hold the camp came to him during a period when he was missing the camaraderie of football.

“I was stuck in work from home, really missing football, and a Clemson mentor connected me to a charity up here in New York that was doing free practices for kids during the pandemic to kind of stay in shape,” Godfrey said. “So I was coaching through that. And then when they canceled the varsity football season for spring of 2020 and for fall 2020 I decided, hey, we've got to do something to give these kids an opportunity that they're missing out on.”

This year’s event will be the fifth camp after the organization has held two events annually since 2020. Godfrey said he started out running the camp alone.

“It’s been really rewarding. The first couple of years I was running the event as kind of myself, bootstrap and everything,” he said. “Starting last year, I've had Blake Vinson join me as a co-director of the camp. So he's kind of my partner in crime and both of us are kind of attacking it from the same perspective, which is, you know, the sport of football has given us so much like way more than we could have ever asked for.

“We both feel this obligation to pay it forward, and it really is super rewarding to get to see these kids get an opportunity to get recruited, but also get to learn from the people that they look up to and kind of inspire some hope.”

The list of former Clemson players coming to help – including a few who play in the NFL – is a long one.

Ty Thomason will help with the running backs, while Godfrey, Vinson, Cade Stewart, Matt Bockhorst, and John Simpson will help with the offensive line. Richard Yeargin and Tavaris Barnes will help with the defensive line, while Baylon Spector and Tanner Muse will help with the linebackers. Nolan Turner will help with the defensive backs.

“It's been really amazing this year working alongside Blake trying to get all of these guys to come up, like all these guys kind of feel the same way we do,” Godfrey said. “Football has just been an incredible blessing for us and we all have an obligation to help wherever we can. Most of these guys are traveling in from way out of town – the only Clemson guys who live here are me and Blake. So it will be a reunion weekend, but it’s also a chance to pay it forward.”