Malcolm Kelly's Trip to Liberia

[GMScud]

Originally Posted by freddyg12

Read all of my post & you'll see that I was giving him credit for taking the trip before signing his deal. Maybe I should've more obviously praised him, but I did say I'd never heard of a rookie doing that, which he deserves a lot of credit for.

Also, see this part of the article:

"He named Mercy Ships his charity of choice after he declared for the NFL Draft last January."

Charity work I believe is a mandatory aspect of nfl employment. There may be some self-promoting in that he & his agent are starting early in forming a good public image for him that will lead to endorsements, maybe something beyond football. They may be working on his image after his public comments about the 40 at OU.

It's ok to self-promote & do good charitable work at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive. So long as he is sincere in his work & does a good job & isn't one of those people (celebrity or not, they're everywhere) that just show up for a little while & then claim it's success later. I don't get the impression that he's doing that, cause like you said he could choose any number of easier ways to get publicity. But also remember that the publicity doesn't hurt.

How did it get on redskins.com anyway?

Charity may be mandatory, but if he didn't genuinely care he would have picked an easy local charity, or at least something in the continental United States. Spending a week in a 3rd world country on another continent isn't exactly a walk in the park, as many of the "charity" work athletes do.

I understand your cynicism on the subject, but I'm buying this one as genuine.