Former Muskegon Heights standout host free football camp

By Brianna Blackshire |admirehermind@gmail.com

MUSKEGON HEIGHTS, MI-  Baltimore Ravens standout receiver Willie Snead hosted a free youth football camp at Phillips Field.

Snead was the star quarterback of the 2009 Muskegon Heights football team that reached the Division 5 state semifinals. The 2009 team had the most wins in Muskegon Heights football history.

The 2011 Muskegon Heights alumnus and his friends hosted the three-hour football camp for about 150 youth on Saturday. Among the coaches instructing the camp was Snead’s father, Willie Snead III, who led Holland Christian to a state championship in 2008 and steered Muskegon Heights to the semifinals in 2009

He and his father, Willie Sneed III, stopped by the Mayes and Wright Media Center to discuss his unconventional path to the league and youth camp prior to the inaugural Need for Sneed Football Camp.

Willie Sneed IV is grateful for the opportunity to play in the NFL and no stranger to hard work and sacrifice. “It was a journey. It wasn’t a picture-perfect moment,” said Sneed.

The former Muskegon Heights and Holland Christian standout was undrafted out of Ball State University, but he earned his way into the league. The 26-year-old wide receiver is entering his fifth season in the NFL.

In 2018, Snead, 5-foot-11 and 205-pounds, played in 16 games for the Ravens and had 651 yards receiving with one touchdown on 62 receptions. He currently has 2,622 total receiving yards in his career and eight TDs.

In three seasons with the New Orleans Saints (2015-17), the team with whom he first secured his spot in the league, Snead played in 41 games and made 19 starts. He totaled 149 receptions for 1,971 yards and seven TDs with the Saints.

After Saturday’s Need for Sneed Football Camp where campers participated in drills and instruction and received food, prizes, T-shirts and other giveaways the wide receiver spoke with local news outlets about his future plans to make the Muskegon Heights program “bigger and better.”

The successful Muskegon Heights alumnus had these parting words, “Stick to the process, trust what you know, trust the people around you, continue to pray and things will play out how they’re supposed to.”