Moving the Goalposts
Twelve teenagers, giddy with just-out-of-school energy, are gathered in a low-ceilinged room at the Boys & Girls Club in Lawrenceville, Georgia, where Ovie Mughelli, the All-Pro Atlanta Falcons fullback, has arrived to lead a weekly session on environmental awareness. He urges the kids to find a seat among the secondhand ballroom chairs and then proceeds to introduce George Hobby, the owner of a local energy-audit company, whom Mughelli has invited as the "green speaker" of the day.
"I've come here to talk about your homes," Hobby says in a deep southern drawl. "To talk about what you can do, and tell your parents to do, to save energy and help save money on your utility bills."
"Wait!" interjects Mughelli with feigned surprise. "You mean they can start saving on their energy bills tonight? You guys need any extra change in your pockets?" he asks the kids, to rowdy affirmation all around.
For the past three years, when he hasn't been suiting up for practice or rushing for yards on game day, Mughelli has been a tireless advocate for the environment. Back in 2008, he was asked to attend a benefit for the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper in Atlanta to perform his usual job of "shaking hands and kissing babies," he says. That night he met Laura Turner Seydel, the daughter of CNN mogul Ted Turner and co-founder of the organization dedicated to preserving the Chattahoochee, which provides Atlanta with 70 percent of its freshwater. "Speaker after speaker talked about why we have to do our part," Mughelli recalls. "They said that we can't strip the planet of resources, and we have to be concerned about the air our children breathe."
Before that night, Mughelli says, he had "heard but never listened to" arguments about protecting the environment. Immediately after the dinner, he began making up for lost time. "Whenever Laura did any kind of green event or educational event, I'd show up."
To help get the message out, he added an environmental component to the free football camps he runs in Atlanta and his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. "If you just had a camp on environmental education," he says, "nobody would show up." So he came up with activities like Recycle on the Run: an unconventional obstacle course in which participants, while cradling a football and contending with walls and traffic cones, must navigate a trash-strewn path, picking up paper wrappers, plastic containers, aluminum cans, and bottles and disposing of them in the proper recycling bins. Slow finishers can make up time by answering eco-trivia questions or unscrambling environmental words. "I want them to understand," Mughelli says, "that recycling has to become second nature to us all."
The after-school clubs he organizes are tailored to low-income urban communities where students may be dealing with poverty, violence, and hunger -- and where environmental issues typically "aren't even on their radar," Mughelli says. With the help of his wife, Masika Perkins, executive director of the three-year-old Ovie Mughelli Foundation, he leads everyone in games like Environmental Jeopardy and Environmental Family Feud. The opportunity to win green-themed swag and tickets to professional sporting events helps distractible kids pay attention during discussions on topics like air quality, water quality, and green jobs.
"It's a passion for me," says the 31-year-old Mughelli of his admittedly time-consuming side gig. "I love my daughter," he adds by way of explanation. He wants his 3-year-old "to be able to say, in 15 years, 'Dad, I'm so proud of you for giving me a better future.' "
Back at the Boys & Girls Club, George Hobby hands out worksheets on electricity and encourages the children to have their parents call to arrange a free home audit. "You guys can't just listen," Mughelli tells the group. "Everything that Mr. Hobby said is great, but if you don't talk to your parents, do the actions, finish your assignments -- it doesn't mean a thing."
Once the talk is over and the teenagers have filed out, Mughelli grows reflective. "It's important for kids to understand that they matter," he says. "That it does make a difference what they do or don't do. That they hold the power in their hands."
