They swear they didn’t force it on their sons. Being former professional football players for the Bills, it wouldn’t be surprising if the narrative was that they pushed their sons into football. But for Nate Clements, London Fletcher, Drew Haddad, Fred Jackson, and Spencer Johnson that just wasn’t the case.
All five former Bills are now proud fathers of high school football players, who are all in a good spot to play major college football. But none of them put them on a football-only track since they were in a crib.
In fact, they all took a similar approach to their kids’ youth sporting lives. They put them in almost every other sport but football.
“I really put him into everything in terms of activities,” said Johnson, of his son, K.K., who is entering his junior season as the starting quarterback at Fort Bend Marshall in Missouri City, Texas. “I wasn’t going to be the kind of dad that forced him down the same path as me. He was a very diverse kid. He liked the arts and music, so I just let him choose his own path. He played, basketball, baseball and of course football as well.”
Fletcher let his son, Steele, play flag football when he was little, but he tried to convince Steele that soccer or basketball might be his path.
“He played a bunch of different sports,” said Fletcher, whose son is now a sophomore at Providence Day high school in North Carolina. “He played soccer, T-ball, basketball, and he played flag (football). He enjoyed all the sports even up until this year. He played football, basketball, and runs track. I actually tried to push basketball. He also did soccer, but football was just his main sport that he loved.”
“Football was the last sport that I introduced to them,” said Clements, who has two high school boys, Ace and Major who now play at Weddington high school in North Carolina. “I had them swinging golf clubs, baseball, soccer. I had them on a swim team one year. I waited for them to ask me, and…
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