NFL legend Jerry Rice speaks to Parkersburg High class

Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerry Rice spoke to Parkersburg High students Wednesday as part of instructor Sam Vincent’s “Sports in American Culture” class.
(Photo by Aaron Lee)

PARKERSBURG — One of, if not the greatest football player of all time talked to a large group of Parkersburg High School students on Wednesday as part of a guest speaker program put on by instructor Sam Vincent for his “Sports in American Culture” class.

Jerry Rice, hall of fame wide receiver and three-time Super Bowl champion, took time out of his day to meet with the students via Zoom. He discussed his journey and answered questions regarding his career, his thoughts on the game of football and what his life looks like now.

The 13-time pro bowler credited his work ethic and teammates for his success, while mentioning how lucky he was to play with two all-time great quarterbacks, “With Joe (Montana), even when he was at Notre Dame, he had that coolness about him, and he brought that to San Francisco. We knew that if we had time on the clock, we knew that Joe Montana could move the ball all the way down the field and win that football game. Then to transition into Steve Young. Think about this, I had two great hall of famers, guys that showed up every day. They were accountable, they led by example. The productivity was out of the roof, and they worked hard every day.”

Twenty years after the end of his football career, Rice is still keeping busy. He is the co-founder and chairman of the energy drink brand G.O.A.T. Fuel. His daughter, Jaqui Rice Gold, founded the company alongside Rice and her husband, Trevion Gold, and is the company’s CEO.

Rice’s youngest son, Brenden Rice, was just drafted by the Los Angeles Chargers in the seventh round of the 2024 NFL Draft. When asked about any receivers from the later rounds of the draft that he expected big things out of, he was quick to bring up his son, “I think it’s my son, Brenden Rice. Under Jim Harbaugh, with (Justin) Herbert as the quarterback, they really don’t have a receiver there anymore.

“They have receivers, but the main guy (Keenan Allen) left, so that’s going to give Brenden a great opportunity to get in there and prove himself. He’s gotta work hard, he’ll have to win the team over, but if he does that, I think he’s going to do great things in the NFL. He’s always competing with me. He’s like, ‘I’m bigger than you dad, I’m faster than you dad and all of those things.’ Then, I have to show him all my stats, and that brings him down to earth a little bit. But I have never seen so many receivers go in the first round. This draft, man, it was just crazy.”

Parkersburg senior and all-state kicker Casey Stanley was in attendance for the talk, and thought that, “It was kind of crazy. We got to talk to Joe Montana earlier in the year, and that was a surreal experience. I didn’t think anything was going to top that, but as an athlete playing football, I’m a kicker and I play wide receiver, so seeing the greatest wide receiver of all time in front of me on a Zoom call and getting to talk to him, that’s a dream right there.”

Rice stood out to Stanley among the list of speakers that have talked to the class because, “He was really engaged with all of us, which I thought was really cool. Sometimes the people we get in here have a tendency where they’re answering the questions but they’re not really there, but he was fully engaged and really cool about it.”

Even as someone who was familiar with Rice’s accomplishments on the gridiron, Stanley came away with new knowledge, “You got to hear some things that you didn’t know, like I didn’t know he was on Dancing with the Stars until somebody asked that.”

Stanley was sure to thank Vincent for his efforts to bring in such prominent guests, “It’s great that Mr. Vincent is doing this. He’s really shooting his shot with all these different people and giving these kids an opportunity that they would never, ever get. How many times are you gonna run into Jerry Rice in your life? That’s what’s really cool about it, he’s giving us opportunities to do something that we would never do in life, which I think is really important. He’s doing a great job with all of us.”

At the end of his talk, the all-time great left the kids with these words of wisdom, “I think the most important thing is to believe in yourself and have the confidence to know that you’re going to go through some obstacles. Be able to fight through that. Have a supporting cast, and always be around people that are gonna uplift you, that aren’t afraid to say, ‘Hey look, that’s not right what you’re doing.’ The most important thing for me, I felt like I had to earn it. I felt I had to prove myself on the football field, and also off the football field. As a professional athlete, it’s how you present yourself. Your appearance. I took pride in everything that I was doing.”

Contact Aaron Lee at alee@newsandsentinel.com