Snoop Dogg's impact on football is more than just Arizona Bowl sponsorship

Snoop Dogg’s influence on football is broader than just slapping his name and alcoholic brand, “Gin & Juice by Dre and Snoop,” as the title sponsor of the Arizona Bowl.

The hip-hop icon and Long Beach, California, native is a well-documented Pittsburgh Steelers and USC football diehard, yes, but his impact on football starts at the grassroots level with youth football players.

The Snoop Youth Football League, founded nearly 20 years ago in Los Angeles, was established to help inner-city youth in LA find a positive path in life through football and cheerleading. Since the inception of SYFL, over 60,000 kids have participated in the league. More than 50 SYFL players have played in the NFL, including C.J. Stroud, Juju Smith-Schuster, Romeo Doubs and Daiyan Henley, among others.

Doubs and Henley played at Nevada under Jay Norvell, the current head coach at Colorado State, which faces Miami (Ohio) in the Arizona Bowl on Saturday. When Norvell was at Nevada, Wolfpack wide receivers coach Eric Scott, who was most recently the passing game coordinator and wide receivers for Arizona Wildcats head coach Brent Brennan at San Jose State, brought multiple Snoop Youth Football League products to Reno.

“We basically built our team at Nevada off of kids in L.A. who played in the Snoop League,” Norvell said. “I’m very humbled today because I probably wouldn’t be here without Eric Scott and the involvement with the Snoop League. I think it really goes back to the core of why we coach.

“They started the Snoop League, because if you know anything about inner-city L.A., there’s a lot of gangs and it’s difficult for a kid to not join a gang. Snoop started this league for a lot of people in the community to give the players something else to do besides joining a gang.”

Added Norvell, who led Nevada to a win at the Arizona Bowl in 2018: “We love L.A. kids. We believe in the kids that grow up in the city. They’re tough and athletic and we’re thankful for the Snoop League. The Snoop League has saved a lot of kids from street violence and the city of LA. We’ve been the beneficiary of getting a lot of those kids and they’ve been great players for us.”

Norvell said, “outside of USC and UCLA, we probably benefitted from the Snoop League more than any program with our teams at Nevada and here.”

“We trusted these kids. For many of these kids, we were their only offer,” said the CSU head coach. “They helped us go to four straight bowl games at Nevada and build that program.”

The Rams have a few players from SYFL, including wide receiver Jordan Ross, quarterback Darius Curry, running back Damian Henderson II, linebacker Jaden Landrum and offensive lineman Aitor Urionabarrenechea.

“I’ve got a lot of kids that call him Uncle Snoop,” Norvell said. “I just want to thank him for what he’s done for the kids in the community in LA. It’s affected people’s lives all over the country.”

Following Colorado State’s pre-bowl practice at Kino North Stadium, Ross said his time in the Snoop Youth Football League “was amazing.”

“It takes them away from the nonsense that’s in LA. ... We don’t have to worry about anything else outside of that world,” said the CSU receiver. “We just focus on what Snoop has planned for us.”

The Snoop Youth Football League brought several teams to Tucson from California and invited youth football teams from California, Arizona, Hawaii, Colorado, New Mexico and Canada to compete in youth football championships from 6U through 13U. In total, 22 youth football teams are competing at the UA and Rillito Park, with the championships held at Arizona Stadium, which received a custom paint job on the field for the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl.

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“With Snoop doing the Arizona Bowl, it was only right for his league to participate,” said SYFL co-founder and executive board member Nykauni Tademy, who recently received a “Changemaker Award” by the Los Angeles Chargers for her efforts with the Snoop Youth Football League.

Tademy founded “Snoop Special Stars,” a division of the Snoop Youth Football League that “caters to all individuals with special needs, cognitive and physical disabilities,” she said. Ages for Snoop Special Stars begins at 5 years old, and “there’s no cutoff age,” Tademy said, and it’s free to join.

“We’re like a little gumbo pot out there,” she said. “We’ve got a little bit of everything. We allow them to have fun and be themselves. We wanted to bring new things and experiences to let them know that they matter and they are someone. We let them do what they do and they have a ball out there.”

The Snoop Special Stars and the youth football teams that traveled to Tucson participated in a youth football clinic held at Bear Down Field connected to Arizona Stadium on Friday. The Arizona Bowl donated to the NIL collectives of both Colorado State and Miami for their players to coach in the youth clinic and work with SYFL players and local athletes.

“It’s great for them to volunteer their time and give back and go back to where they started,” Tademy said. “I’m sure most of them started by participating in different sports camps. It’s a revolving door and they’re now giving back to where they used to be.”

Now that the Snoop Youth Football League has existed for nearly two decades, “Seeing everyone do well, that’s what gives me the pride and joy, knowing what we’re doing is impacting lives and the community, especially inner city and the less fortunate,” said Tademy.

Scott knows about life in inner-city LA. He grew up in the heart of L.A. and graduated from Crenshaw High School before playing receiver at UCLA and starting his coaching career. There were youth programs, “but it dissipated and went away” over the years, Scott said. That’s when his vision, along with Snoop Dogg’s fame and love for football, created the SYFL to allow kids to play football without having to drive more than an hour to Orange County or other places around LA.

“We needed something around the neighborhood, because all of us were football fans and played ball,” said Scott, who’s now the head coach at West LA Community College. “We put our heads together. It’s crazy, because Snoop was a big football fan, so we just decided to start our own league.”

Snoop Dogg “was always a community guy and me being a football guy, mutual friends brought us all together,” Scott said. Scott and Snoop Dogg’s plan for the SYFL “was a match made in heaven, because it’s sports and entertainment,” said Scott, who will be one of Colorado State’s honorary captains along with Eugene Henley, also known as “Big U,” a music executive and father of Daiyan Henley.

Scott witnessed the infancy stages of the Snoop Youth Football League, and “not only did we get to watch these wonderful players grow up and become stars, we saw the league grow up and now the league is a part of something bigger and something greater,” like a college football bowl game.

“When you start it, you don’t think about where it goes,” Scott said. “You don’t start it and think it’s going to turn into something greater. You started it, because you wanted to deter the kids from getting into bad habits; you wanted to give them something to do. We couldn’t see where it was going but we saw the impact that we had on the kids and how they remember. To this day, these are grown men with children and they still call me ‘coach.’ It’s amazing.

“It’s an amazing feeling to see that we were a part of this youngster’s life and now he has a family. A majority of them are productive members of society now. As a young man, I didn’t have much direction growing up, so to be a part of these young men and guide them to the right high schools and helping them get into colleges, it doesn’t get any better.”

Photos: Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl youth football clinic