DADE CITY, Fla. \u2014 Mickens Field, in the heart of Dade City, holds a lot of memories. Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Penix, Jr. grew up on this field and has some very fond ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a lot of touchdowns,\u201d Penix said.<\/p>\n
For the second-straight year, Penix helped create some special football memories for some very young players. His annual youth football camp shone a spotlight on the Dade City community, and Penix wanted each player to feel like he does whenever he sets foot onto a football field.<\/p>\n
\u201cMainly just have fun. Just be where your feet (are) and enjoy the moment,\u201d he said. \u201cEnjoy every moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The free event saw 270 kids, and they ran through the paces with various drills. They got to run around the same football field Penix ran on, got to participate and catch passes from the NFL quarterback, and they got to dream \u2014 dream of maybe one day going pro like Penix.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a product of what happens when we do things right,\u201d Dade City Mayor Pro Tem Normita Woodard said. \u201cWhen you reach back and bring another one along, this is what this community is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is family for Penix. And family means everything to him. That\u2019s why he came home, and why he will keep coming back and keep giving back.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means the world, just to come back (and) give the kids resources,\u201d Penix said. \u201cJust giving them a familiar face that was able to come out of this small town, and be able to make it, and big things in life, and give them hope.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DADE CITY, Fla. \u2014 Mickens Field, in the heart of Dade City, holds a lot of memories. Atlanta…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":931393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[1615,1613,223,254,2554,224,20252,7,30756,21170,88,6,38226,11374,9,209,1004,64913,3828],"class_list":["post-931392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atlanta-falcons","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-atlantafalcons","tag-falcons","tag-florida-sports","tag-football","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-katherine-smith","tag-news","tag-nfl","tag-pasco-county","tag-professional-football","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116829872717135202","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}