Bradley Pinion gives back to Clemson community with huge giveaway

One attendee tries for a field goal under the watchful eyes of Lori Pinion and Jeff Davis.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Sun May 22 08:00:05 GMT-04:00 2022

CLEMSON – One of Clemson’s best showed up at Clemson Elementary Saturday afternoon, giving back to a community that he feels like sometimes gets overlooked.

Bradley Pinion, the Super Bowl champion punter who played for Clemson from 2012-2014, hosted the Touchback to Giveback Saturday. Pinion, along with his wife Kaeleigh and Convoy of Hope, gave away shoes, socks, groceries, school supplies, haircuts, and hot meals to kids at the school under sunny skies at the school.

Pinion wasn’t alone – Clemson football players like KJ Henry, Jake Briningstool, and BT Potter were there to help, along with the legendary Jeff Davis, National Championship soccer player Isaiah Reed, and even Carla “Momma” Boyd. Pinion’s mom, Lori, was also on hand to help with supplies and helping with the Kids Zone. Kids were signed in and given bags for their goodies before heading off to play or grab a SnoCone.

“This all started six years ago when I got into the NFL and I met the Convoy of Hope team,” Pinion told TigerNet.” We did an event with San Francisco 49ers, when I was out there right around Christmas and it was very similar to this and I was like, man, this is something that I want to bring to Clemson. And this is not a knock on anybody, but I feel like everybody does events in Greenville because it's a city. But like per capita, you have just as many people in need in Clemson.

“And I said, you know what, I want to do this in Clemson with my wife being from Pickens. I want to bring it to Clemson. It took me kind of five years to get the courage to do it, because I didn't want nobody to show up or not have enough supplies or whatever it might be. So, we did it. This is just us honestly trying to show God's light for everybody. I'm trying to be His feet in His hand. And this is just mine and my wife's way of giving back to a community that’s given so much to me. Without the fans that I've had throughout my career as a Tiger and in the NFL, none of this would be possible.”

Pinion was proud of the giveaways.

“We have shoes and socks, hygiene kits. We have school supplies for the next year, book bags, Skins Hot Dogs, Pepsi products, the National Breast Cancer Foundation is out here doing women's health, essentially because we found that the mom is usually the one that gets neglected because she's taking care of everybody else. So we are kind of empowering her because if something happens to her, then the whole family is not going in the right direction. But we have a kid's play zone with bouncy houses and slides. We have Pelican SnoCones. We have the Greenville Swamp Rabbits out here. We had about ten of the Greenville Drive baseball players, some players from football, and guys came in from the soccer team, the tennis team, and track.

“We've had a little bit of everybody out here.”

Pinion’s uncle helped come up with the funds, along with a little help from Pinion’s valuable leg.

“My uncle has a company called Arlington Industries out of Charlotte. My uncle called me probably two years ago and said, hey, I want to find a way to incentivize my employees to give back,” Pinion said. “And I said, okay, let's figure something out. And so we came up with Touchback to Giveback. For every Touchback that I would hit on a kick off in a regular season, you could donate a dollar per touchback, or any amount of money you wanted to. In the first year we did it, last year, we raised just at $100,000 and then this past year we blew last year out of the water and raised over $400,000. So in two years we raised half a million and we’e going to hopefully do a lot more of these events.”

Pinion planned for 1000 kids and there was a huge turnout, with Pinion running around making sure everything was running smooth.

“It means the world to me because like I said, without the Clemson fans and without those that have supported the NFL, it's just a game we're playing, right? A lot of people don't realize that the fans are the most important part, because if we're just playing in an empty stadium, and we saw that with COVID, you're not going to make any money,” Pinion said. “And everybody wants out there and so the fans are really the most important part. It's just a small way for my wife and it back to the Clemson family.”