By Scott Daugherty
The Virginian-Pilot
NORFOLK Hamburgers. Moon bounces. Professional football players. What more could a 5-yearold boy want? “I wish the Green Ninja was here,” Isaiah Clark said with a mouth full of hot dog. “It’s a Lego.”
Kam Chancellor – a Seattle Seahawks safety who grew up in Norfolk – hosted a free cookout Saturday afternoon which drew hundreds of kids to Lakewood Park.
“When I had cookouts as a kid, I just remember the whole family coming together,” said Chancellor, explaining why he has organized the Seven Cities Family & Friends Memorial Day Cookout the past three years. “I thought that if I did that for the community, I could make the entire community come together.”
And, he said, making little kids happy isn’t a bad way to spend a Saturday.
“I’m all about bettering lives and putting smiles on faces,” said Chancellor, who graduated in 2006 from Maury High School and went on to play football at Virginia Tech.
Chancellor has plenty to smile about himself.
Last month, he signed a five-year deal in a contract extension from the Seahawks worth up to $35 million, he said.
But with great power comes great responsibility. Chancellor said he tries to be a role model, particularly to
children in single-parent homes.
“That’s something I can relate to,” he said, explaining that his mother raised him and his five siblings by herself.
He said it was hard, because she had to work so much.
“Six kids in the house with just my mom,” he said. “It wasn’t easy.”
Hence the cookout. For six hours Saturday – while men and women wearing “Property of Seattle” T-shirts served
grilled chicken, pork chops and macaroni and cheese – Chancellor signed autographs, posed for photos and
chatted with fans.
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