Draft hopeful CB Bernard Blake shoulders big load as mentor for youths

At Werner Elementary School in Ft. Collins, Colo., Jennifer Johnston often encourages her fifth-grade class to email a celebrity they admire. It's part of her push to get kids to dream big and learn about the humongous world outside the school.

"No one really ever returns an email," Johnston says. "But Bernard did."

Bernard is Bernard Blake, a defensive back for Colorado State and NFL draft hopeful. A boy named Tate Johnson emailed Blake and then, a few days later, Tate came up to his teacher and asked if Bernard Blake could visit the school.

"Uhhhh," Johnston said. "Sure!"

Blake came to the school and met the kids. Then he came back again. Then he kept returning, sometimes with a writing project, sometimes with a math project. Then he came to have lunch with the kids. Then he was outside at recess with them. It got to the point that when Blake didn't come in for a couple of weeks, Johnston worried the lesson plan would suffer.

"He would come in and the kids would light up," Johnston says. "He would motivate kids to do great work. He was a hoot."

This wasn't part of some college project. It wasn't for credit. It was just something Blake did. Something he has done for years, in fact. And usually without telling anyone. People at Colorado State admit they can't keep up with it all. At various times during school he showed up at the Centre Avenue Health and Rehab Facility, at the Harmony Mobile Home Park, at Respite Care …

"It's as many people as he can and whoever wants to talk to him," says his brother, Eric. "I've never seen him turn down anybody."

Even on his 21st birthday, usually reserved for various grown-up celebrations, Blake could be found playing video games after school at Tate's house.

"I'm not one to go out all the time," Blake says. "I was either going to play video games at my house or somewhere else, so I might as well play video games with a kid."

All this started when Blake was in high school in Bastrop, Texas, and a boy named Edward "became attached to me," Blake says. It was then that Blake realized the influence he had with children in his relatively small community of 7,000. He encouraged little Edward to behave at home and as a reward, he could come to his team's games. Blake gave the boy his shoulder pads and learned later on that Edward was sleeping in them. Edward is 12 now, and Blake still emails him. He says he's in touch with dozens of children, replying to every email.

"He started to bring pictures of himself to sign autographs," Johnston says. "He would sit in the lunchroom for every single one. He was never in a rush."

Johnston even asked Tate w

hy he did all this.

"He just likes kids," Tate replied.

Blake gets his devotion to children from his mother, Charlotte Garrett, who ran a day care center and is now an educational director in Texas. "She does it all," Blake says. "Superwoman."

It was from watching his mom and learning about the history of his hometown that drove Blake to help. Bastrop is a football-nuts town, just like every town in Texas, but if Blake is drafted – his draft projection is Round 7, according to NFL.com – he will be the first from Bastrop to get drafted since 1949. (You could make the case that the most famous athlete from the town is The Undertaker.) So Blake has made it his goal to one day open a training center there, so kids can have a place to go and play and chase whatever sports dreams they have.

"Everybody has a dream," he says, "but not everybody knows how to get there."

If and when Blake lands in an NFL city, there's one child he wants as a guest at his first game: Jack Miller, a boy invited to meet the CSU team by then-coach Jim McElwain. Miller, a 9-year-old from nearby Louisville, Colo., underwent two open-heart surgeries to fix a heart defect as a baby before doctors found tumors in his brain. He has been battling through chemotherapy treatments ever since.

When Jack first came into the team locker room, Blake remembers the room falling silent. "I knew I'd develop a relationship with him," he says. It turned out he developed a relationship with Jack's entire family, visiting their home and, yes, Jack's school. After every Rams game, there was Jack riding around on Blake's shoulders. That became as much a part of the postgame in Ft. Collins as the fight song. Blake explains that the shoulder ride is a way to take some of the weight off Jack and carry it himself.

"It's so good to see a player like that using his fame to invest in others," says McElwain, now at Florida.

Blake shrugs it off, insisting Jack did more for him than the reverse. "When I was in the weight room or at practice, or not fully tuned in, I would think about Jack Miller," he says. "I can give more, always give more. I can say he played a huge role on the team."

Blake plans to fly Jack and his family to his first NFL game, wherever it may be. In the meantime, he's looking for more kids to mentor. During a brief training session in Arizona this spring, he even tried to find new children who might need help. There's no such thing as enough, apparently. Eric has a story about going to IHOP after a Rams game and suddenly Bernard was at the next table talking to a new family.

"The smile on the kid's face was incredible," Eric says. "The parents were even happier.

"He loves it. That's really what he does. If football wasn't for him, I see him doing something with kids."

There is a bit of sadness in Ft. Collins now, though, as Blake is leaving. There won't be the regular visits to schools or the postgame shoulder rides. "You don't get many of those people in the world," Johnston says.

The challenge in his new city might be the overload of new fans. If Blake makes a team, the dozens of kids he corresponds with could multiply, and quickly.

He insists it won't matter. "When time allows," he says, "they will all get a response."

So will Edward, Jack and Tate. And everyone in the fifth-grade class at Werner Elementary. That is a promise.

"He definitely will correspond," Johnston says. "I have no doubt in my mind."