Seahawks’ Brandon Shell shows by mentoring stuttering kids what we need more of: empathy
Brandon Shell has what we all could use more of right now.
Empathy.
Tuesday, Shell could have kicked back on his only off day of the week. He’s 6-foot-5 and 324 pounds. The front-side protector for Russell Wilson, the best quarterback in the world right now, had just played all 76 offensive snaps in the Seahawks’ wild win over Dallas two days earlier. His long, repeated repelling of three different pass-rush moves by Cowboys defensive end Aldon Smith, who had three sacks in the game, gave Wilson more than 5 seconds to find DK Metcalf breaking free for the winning touchdown in Seattle’s latest victory.
Shell’s played all 201 snaps Seattle’s had on offense this season. Heck, he could have slept his entire day off and been justified. Recharge for his next challenge: repelling charging Miami Dolphins defenders on Sunday in what’s supposed to be 85-degree heat and 80% humidity in south Florida.
Instead, he continued to help empower children. He is helping them overcome what he did when he was a kid.
Shell hosted a dozen high-school-aged kids for an online Zoom question-and-answer session Tuesday to talk about their fears and struggles, about feeling picked on and overwhelmed because they stutter.
Just as Shell did when he was their age.
He still remembers classmates making fun of him, laughing and yelling at him to “get the word out!” He was afraid to talk. Kids picked on his silence by nicknaming him Jolly Green Giant, Big Softy, Big Teddy Bear.
Those are the printable names.
“That Zoom call, I know there are a lot of kids that struggle with the stuttering,” he said this week. “I just know that, being like a guy that I am, and I am using my platform to actually let them know that it’s OK if you have that problem. You can get through it. And it’s not going to define you and what you want to be in life.”
While with the New York Jets for four NFL seasons, Shell appeared in television spots for STOMP Out Bullying, a national anti-bullying and cyberbullying organization for kids and teens.
When Shell, 28, left the Jets this spring and signed a two-year, $11 million contract with Seattle to replace departing Germain Ifedi as the Seahawks’ right tackle, he told his manager, Tzvi Grossman, he wanted to find a way to help kids that struggle with stuttering.
So Shell and Grossman, based in Monsey, New York, built a relationship with SAY, The Stuttering Association for the Young.
Actor, director and teacher Taro Alexander founded SAY 19 years ago. He’s stuttered since he was 5. The roots of his non-profit organization is in performing arts. SAY initially facilitated children to write their own plays and songs to perform for parents, friends and the public. Then SAY incorporated filmmaking. Teens began writing short films and starring in them.
“SAY does a wonderful job of having the kids be around and get to know other kids that have the same struggles,” Grossman told The News Tribune in an email. “In the past a child would be the only kid in his class or school that stuttered.”
SAY has grown into summer camps, outreach programs, partnerships with speech-language pathologists, after-school and weekend programs on public-speaking and advocacy in their schools and community. Its programs have won the 2017 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, the Charles Van Riper Award from the National Council on Communicative Disorders awarded at the Kennedy Center in New York and a Special Citation from the New York State Speech-Language Hearing Association.
Yeah, that’s empowering for the kids.
So is Zoom chatting with an $11 million NFL player who was once just like you.
Asked about his favorite part of the call Tuesday, Shell smiled as if he’d just pancaked a defensive end.
“Ah, man, just actually talking with the kids, and them asking me questions about how I got through it, about the things that I do to get by it,” he said.
“Just seeing those kids actually listening and locked in, just talking and asking questions — and seeing them taking the knowledge and just running with it — was great for me.”
Shell’s efforts are getting noticed in the speech-language pathology and stuttering communities in his new NFL city.
“It is wonderful that Brandon Shell is using his platform to reach out to kids who stutter when they so often feel alone,” Elyse Lambeth, MS, CCC-SLP for Speech and Language Services at Seattle Children’s hospital, told The News Tribune on Thursday.
Grossman saw the belief Shell instilled in those children Tuesday.
“This Zoom call was a way for Brandon to show 12 high school-aged kids that as long as they believe in themselves there is no limit to what they can accomplish,” the tackle’s manager said.
How did Shell overcome his stuttering when he was those kids’ age, when he was at Goose Creek High School in South Carolina?
The way he’s helping them overcome theirs: through empathy.
“It was just with my friends and family. Close friends,” Shell said. “People that knew I had a problem, just sticking close to them. And for them, understanding me. Them helping me through it was me building my self-confidence, to not really care what people think, you know?
“Just being myself.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2020 at 5:13 PM.
