Tryouts for NFLA team in Memphis

MEMPHIS, Tenn.– The coach of a new football team coming to Memphis is hoping to get young people off the streets and on the gridiron.

The Tennessee Vikings will join thirty other Next Level Football Alliance teams this season, and Marcus Mills is looking for players.

“There are times I wanted to act out, and I couldn’t because I knew there were people watching me. There were times that I wanted to quit, but I couldn’t,” said Mills.

Mills credits the life he lives today to the game of football. A player for 22 years, he says football shaped him into the man he has grown up to be.

“It’s changed my life because it’s made me grow up not only as a man but as a father, a husband, as a leader. It has changed me tremendously,” Mills said.

Now, he wants to share his passion for the game with other men in Memphis, specifically where he grew up in Whitehaven.

“I felt like we can bring men together from all different parts of the city, all different gangs, whatever it is or whatever the case may be, and bring everybody together in one brotherhood,” said Mills.

Mills and his cousin, Ureaka Prescott, will hold the first round of tryouts this weekend for the Tennessee Vikings, an ode to his alma mater, Hillcrest High.

The team will join nearly three dozen others in the Next Level Football Alliance and take on teams from all over the region. The cousins said it’s about so much more than the game.

“If there is nothing to look forward to, then they’re going to think that their life is nothing. So that’s how trouble starts up. Because they need to have something to look forward to, something that they can feel a part of. Something positive,” said Prescott.

Mills said they’re not necessarily looking for the biggest or fastest players but the most dedicated. If he can find that, Mills says he already has a winning team.

“I’m going to win if I can look out there Saturday at tryouts, and we’ve got 100 people at tryouts. I’m going to win because I know I took 100 men from the streets and they offered and gave me their time for four hours,” Mills said.

The first round of tryouts will be this Saturday at McBride rugby field on Hollywood by the board of education from 12 p.m.- 4 p.m.

Players must be 18 years or older. The registration fee is $25.

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