Sports Illustrated

Derrick Brooks

One of pro football's premier linebackers, Derrick Brooks cuts an imposing figure, as 10 Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will attest. Off the field, he's been just as successful. Through Derrick Brooks Charities, he has established the Brooks Bunch, a foundation that provides area children with educational programs, overseas trips and Bucs tickets. Two years ago, Brooks started thinking even bigger. In his latest and biggest endeavor, he has partnered with the DeBartolo family (who once owned the 49ers) and long-time educator Dr. Phildra Swagger to start Brooks-DeBartolo Collegiate High School, the first school of its kind in Tampa.

Derrick, what were your goals and focus when you started the Brooks Bunch back in 1995?
Brooks: "My dreams were very simple. I just wanted to give kids tickets to football games. But obviously the Lord's vision was bigger than mine. And he blessed me - where I started by giving two kids tickets to a game, to blessing 20 kids each week, to twice leading a trip of 35 kids to South Africa and to now starting our own high school."

You must be pleased to see how far it's come.
Brooks: "It really has come a long way. But that's the one thing I will not take credit for. It's been the hard work of a lot of people volunteering their time, believing in the vision that I set forth, buying into that and then realizing that to achieve something it was going to cost something. I tell people that I'm just the guy that puts the car on the road, but it's the kids who drive the car and teachers and volunteers who give the directions."

One of the charity initiatives you developed with your foundation was a cultural learning trip to South Africa for 35 kids, which is also when you met Dr. Swagger for the first time (back in 2005). What was it about her that stuck out to you on that trip?
Brooks: "She was one of the instructors, and you could see her enthusiasm and how she went far beyond the call of duty to make sure the kids gathered as much information as they could out of the experience. I gained a lot of respect for her in that time, and really, it was her attitude that was totally focused on the kids and not just on herself that showed me a lot. "
Swagger: "When I met Derrick and traveled to Africa with him in 2005, a couple of things amazed me about him. The first thing I have to say is that I'm not a football fan. But being in Tampa, you have to know the name Derrick Brooks because of his charity work with kids. I could tell how much Derrick loved kids on that trip, and it really blew me away."

When you got back, Dr. Swagger, you became more involved with Derrick's charities in Tampa, and eventually had some bigger ideas for him. What did those include?
Swagger: "Well after working with his charity for a while, I saw all the great programs they had up and running. And I said to myself that there had to be a way to bring all of his efforts under one roof so his resources would go even further."
Brooks: "Dr. Swagger took a personal interest in all that we were doing, and saw that I wanted to impact more kids. Because even though 35 kids went on that trip to Africa, there were 20 that didn't go. And personally, I was more concerned about how I could reach the kids that didn't go and still have them be a part of what we were doing."
Swagger: "I told Derrick that we should start a charter high school, taking all of his programs and impacting so many more kids. Derrick prayed on it, and the next thing I knew we were off and rolling with that vision in mind."
Brooks: "We had established a model through all of the programs that the Derrick Brooks Charities were doing. I mean we had created the curriculum we were teaching and had found the teachers who were teaching it, so we in essence were functioning like a school though we didn't really know it. So when Dr. Swagger mentioned the idea of a school, I knew we would have success because of the success we've had with our programs. It was just a matter of finding the right partner to do it, and that's when I approached the DeBartolo family, and I asked them to believe in my vision. And they welcomed the idea for a charter school with open arms.'

The two of you teamed up to write a tight business proposal and selected a board of directors for the school. But you ran into some issues in regards to a physical location. What made you stay the course with the idea and not give up?
Swagger: "I never once thought that we couldn't make it. I told Derrick that if we followed through with our idea and started this school, I was confident we could serve the purpose that we intended, and the students and community would be pleased with the outcome."
Brooks: "We had our doubts at times, for sure.  We went to one building, it would fall through, so we'd move to another and that would fall through too. But every time one door shut, another one opened. And that's what kept us going. Because in the end, I just refused to let a facility hinder us from letting us do what we needed and wanted to do here. We just kept pounding on doors until we found the right one."

The idea for the school is that all kids, with the proper resources, can reach their potential. Your ideas for the school were unique with smaller class sizes and modern facilities, but especially so when it comes to your focus on advanced placement and dual-enrollment courses. Where did that idea come from?
Brooks: "Growing up (in Pensacola), I had been through those programs and saw how much they meant to me. It took a year and a half off of me graduating college (at Florida State). We decided to take on the dual-enrollment, AP process because we know that we can take kids who are considered a B or C student in public schools, bring them into a private school environment such as a public charter, and help them succeed. We had to make our school different. Our kids are getting a private school environment in a public school setting. And it's free to attend."
Swagger: "Our focus is to recruit students who know that they have something that can take them farther than where they are, but they haven't quite found the right fit or right encouragement to get there yet. We are looking for students who at times might be on the margin of academic success and then bringing them into an environment that promotes a unique college prep curriculum and a small community of learners. Really, we just want all of our kids to realize their potential."

The decision was made not to include athletics at the school, which will come as a surprise to some of your fans, Derrick. What was the reasoning for that?
Brooks: "It's really pretty simple. If we would have done that, we actually would have denied our license as a school, and I think the wrong message would have been sent about the school to a lot of people that it was Derrick Brooks and the DeBartolo family trying to build a sports academy, which was the furthest thing from our goal. So we had to ensure that people understood our focus was on education and that our message was that we wanted to be truly an academic institution and not at all interested in building a sports academy."

BDCHS opened last September (2007) with 183 students, a size that will likely double by next year. How has the first year gone, and what have been some of the biggest successes and challenges you've faced as a new school?
Swagger: "To be honest, one of the biggest challenges for me is to help the community become more educated on what exactly it is that charter schools offer - mainly because our school targets a particular group of students for a particular purpose. We want kids who are motivated to be academically successful. So the challenge has been to communicate clearly to the community what we're trying to accomplish and also not have them expect that, because of who our founders are, that we're building an athletic powerhouse. Instead, we're trying to build an academic powerhouse."
Brooks: "It's been a good year, overall. Obviously like anything with growth, we realize that a school is not born overnight. The product of our foundation has been the years and years of building that we've done with the charities and programs, and we realize that everything won't happen immediately. But we're going to continue to get the positive message out there of what we're doing and those things will take care of themselves."
Swagger: "The success we've had is that parents have become involved in what we're trying to do. Our students are creating their school and buying into the vision that we've created, and in turn are maturing into the scholars we're trying to work with. In addition, our community partners are vital. We're making concrete avenues, building roads into the communities and organizations and partnerships that we want to have and that will allow us to grow. With each year, we'll add more to make the school better."

When you step back and look at how you'd like this school to be perceived as time goes by, would you want people to say about BDCHS?
Swagger: "Down the road, if people can look at us as a community school that turns out scholars who attend Florida universities and hopefully come back to Florida communities to contribute, then we've done our jobs as educators. I hope that parents and families see us as a school where our founders used their resources to make a difference. They didn't just talk about it, but they walked it and lived the vision."
Brooks: "What I've learned over the last 13 years working with these kids is that we can start out with the message of education, but we're taking it beyond the traditional institution. The unique thing about our high school is that we're preparing our kids for life, and that's the experience I want these kids to get. Yes, we're going to focus on getting these kids ready for college. But at the same time, I want to provide the same for the kid that wants to graduate high school and work, and maybe attend college a few years later. Because of the corporate relationships we have, we can start preparing kids for life because as I can tell you, education goes a lot further than just the classroom."
Swagger: "Like I said before, I'm not a football fan. But I am a Derrick Brooks fan as an educator and as a man. I've had the opportunity to observe him as a community leader, husband, father and business mentor, and he wants this project to be as successful as it possibly can. So he is a great player on the field, from what people tell me. But off the field, he uses his name, his resources and his time to protect this seed and to say, 'Hey, if I can do this project and create something to help kids, I did something good.' Derrick is spending his time off the field protecting the ideals of Tampa-area kids and promoting to them the benefits of education."