Will Parks‘ teammates call him “Philly”, a nickname that’s both a reflection of where he’s from and how his old neighborhood of Germantown in north Philadelphia continues to shape the Broncos defensive back today.
On Sunday in Houston, Parks will wear cleats promoting Philadelphia CeaseFire as part of the NFL’s “My Cause My Cleats” initiative. For the fourth-year pro, the skyrocketing gun violence in Philadelphia — the city had 353 homicides in 2018, the most in more than a decade, and is on pace to surpass that in 2019 — is raw and personal.
It’s personal for Parks, whose focus and work ethic enabled him to rise above the distractions that came with being a star football player at Germantown High School.