Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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where have you gone? it was football season, and Watters had always been a talker, especially when it came to football. The bottle remained untouched. No artificial energy was required. Six months earlier a friend from his NFL days called Watters to tell him Oak Ridge High School in inner-city Orlando, Fla., was looking for a new head coach, and he had put Watters' name on the list. The five-time Pro Bowler helped train some players and worked at camps in the area, but his charity work in the region is what made Watters' friend think of him for the job. Watters and his wife, Catherina, with whom he has two young sons, have tried to help at-risk youth for more than a decade through their family foundation. He built a reputation mentoring young athletes in the area that won him a spot in the Central Florida Sports Commission Hall of Fame in 2011. Oak Ridge presented an opportunity to expand that role to a much larger population. "He told me that instead of mentoring a handful of kids that needed my help, I could be mentoring 80 of them," Watters said. "And that's what it's been. It's been really great." More than 90 percent of the students at Oak Ridge come from families that live below the poverty level. English is a second language for many of them. Those that go home to the same singleparent home every night are the lucky ones. Several bounce from one friend's house to the next to find a place to sleep at night. As an adopted child himself, Watters can relate to their hardships or discomfort. When it came time to find a new coach, Shelton Lewis, the school's administrator in charge of overseeing athletics, knew he needed someone that would command respect and be a role model. Lewis, a former collegiate player, had found success before by hiring ex-NFL players. He knew Watters had the credentials to make an immediate impact. Watters spent 11 seasons in the NFL after he finished his four years at Notre Dame. He racked up 10,643 rushing yards and 78 touchdowns during what will someday possibly be deemed a Hall of Fame career. He tied a Super Bowl record with three rushing touchdowns in the 49ers' championship victory before leaving to play in Philadelphia and Seattle. The decade Watters spent working in the community after his playing career also appealed to Lewis. "If you're coming here for money, that's not a good idea. As a coach you're going to spend more money trying to help these kids because you care about them," Lewis said. "If you're just going to coach these kids on the field, it's not going to work at this school. This isn't that type of school." Watters is already more than a coach on the field. He drives his players home from practice so they don't have to walk three or four miles to the neighborhood. He's bought cleats and shoulder pads for the team. He took a few of them back-to-school shopping a month ago. He foots the bill for a pregame pasta meal from Olive