MEAN MACHINE FOR LIFE

As 5-year-old JaiDynce Reed runs up and down the field watching his older brother JaiDeon Reed practice with the Mean Machine football program, coach George Foster calls out to him, asking what grade he is in.
It turns out JaiDynce, still in kindergarten, is still too young to strap on the pads for Foster and the Mean Machine, but the coach likes what he sees, praising his enthusiasm and energy before giving him a kiss on his head.
By balancing these types of fatherly moments with the more disciplinarian edge of being a football coach, Foster has touched the lives of many young players through the years.
Foster began Mean Machine Youth Football about nine years ago as part of the Jefferson County Youth Football Conference. The impetus was what Foster believed was a need for a youth football program that wasn’t closed off to families that couldn’t afford to pay for their children to play the sport.
“We found a way to let every kid play,” Foster says. “It was more about the kid (than the football) to me, and always will be.”
It took about $4,500 dollars to get the program off the ground — money he raised with the help of local businesses. The first check, he says, came from Nip Kelley Equipment Company. After talking with the business owners for over an hour, the company bought in — literally — to Foster’s vision.
This year was the first that Foster had to charge players something to play, but his concept remains the same.
“A lot of these kids that are in the program come from single-mother households and they grow up bigger than Mom,” Foster says. “I’ve kept a lot of kids over the weekends and eat pizza with them, talk or just watch football.”
Foster describes the Mean Machine approach as tough but caring. The team looks out for each other; they are a family. Players and coaches use the phrase, “Mean Machine For Life.”
“When you see youth sports, players will go through them and they are finished,” Foster says. “Every one of my kids stays with us. Whether second grade, third grade, fourth grade or whatever. I stay with them through college or what they need me for.”
Foster means what he says. On Friday nights, he’s the guy yelling near the end zone at Cape Girardeau Central High School football games, cheering on his former players. During the week, it’s not uncommon to run into him in the halls of the local elementary schools, where he checks in on his current players’ grades.
Former Central High School quarterback Kway’Chon Chisom came to Cape Girardeau from Hayti in the fourth grade and played for the Mean Machine for three years.
“When I played it was very competitive,” Chisom says. “It was more so about discipline than teaching football.”
“You don’t have to have good grades to play at that level, but he always came to our schools and checked up on us and made sure we were there. It helped when we were in high school and grades mattered more.”
Chisom says Foster will, from time to time, visit him or current Southeast Missouri State football player Al Young at their homes just to check up on them. The former Tigers standouts don’t look at him as “Coach” anymore, but as family.
A coaching veteran of 38 years, Foster talks about how many parent-son duos have played under him, including his assistant coaches. When current assistant Justin Rollet was in the Cape Youth tackle league, he played for Foster; now his son plays for him.
“Coach gave to me and now I get to give back,” Rollet says.
His son, Trenton, just finished his second and final season playing for the team. Trenton lives in Jackson and could have played for Jackson’s youth team this year but the sixth-grader says he is Mean Machine and will always be.
“There will be a time in high school when I will play against my Cape friends, but now I want to be on the same team.” Trenton says.
One of those friends, Deonta DePree, is a fellow captain for the Mean Machine fifth- and sixth-grade squad, known as the “Big Team.” A Seattle Seahawks fan who dreams of pulling on his favorite team’s jersey one day, DePree fosters those dreams right now by learning under the tutelage of Foster.
“When I wake up in the morning, I feel myself winning,” DePree says. “I don’t like to talk before a game because it wastes energy and I like to get my mind right to play.”
Cartez Wallace Jr. just wrapped up his third year playing for the “Little Team,” made up of second- through fourth-grade players. Wallace — who says he enjoys playing basketball, baseball and video games — helped the squad reach the championship game two years ago before winning it all a season ago.
“If we work hard, we play hard, and if we play hard, we win.” Wallace says.
On the last Tuesday in October — Halloween — Foster surprises Wallace as he exits from class at Franklin Elementary School, hiding behind a door and coming in for a hug to the wide-eyed young player.
Foster makes the trip in order to stop by and recognize Wallace for his good work in school and for reaching his goals; it is Foster’s third in-season visit to Franklin this fall. The reason for that extra investment is simple — keeping his Mean Machine family members on track to chase their dreams.
“We all start out with a dream,” Foster says.
Regardless of what that dream is — for many, like Wallace, it involves one day stepping on an NFL field — Foster knows it all starts with putting the kids in a position to get into college.
“If we can get them four years of school then I have done my job,” Foster says. “I’m trying to reach the kids that will not get the opportunity to go to college and get them there.”
At the heart of it, that is what Mean Machine football is about for Foster — an opportunity to reach kids and provide a positive direction for them not just as football players, but as people. And after nearly four decades pushing that mission — including the last in the form of Mean Machine — his passion for it has not diminished.
“This has been a blessing to me,” Foster says. “I am retired from SEMO, retired with the military and as long as the good lord continues to give me health I plan on doing this.”