Family comes 1st for Barbers

The crying said plenty.
"We've all got different responsibilities now than we had seven years ago when we had our first camp," said Barber, his voice competing with those of his two young daughters. "Kids, extended family and every thing else."
Family obligations have done what NFL stardom never could -- pulled Tiki and Ronde Barber away from their hometown.
The end of June came and went without the annual NFL Twins Camp, a staple in the Roanoke Valley since 1998. And it's quite possible we've seen the last of the weeklong event that drew campers from as far away as upstate New York -- at least in the form we're used to seeing it.
"It's never a matter of want-to; it's always a matter of can you," Ronde said, when asked if the camp might return. "We've always gotten a lot out of it, and I think the kids we've had there have gotten a lot out of it, too. You just never know."
Ronde, a cornerback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, said his mother's move from Roanoke to Maryland earlier this year was a factor.
"It definitely made it harder," he said. "When we've come to Roanoke, we've come to Roanoke with the whole family. We would have had to find another place to stay, which is not prohibitive, but there were a lot of different issues."
Another would be Tiki's travel schedule. A running back for the New York Giants, Tiki spent last week in Israel as a goodwill ambassador. He also has two young boys who help soak up his free time.
In fact, five of the camp's local mainstays -- the Barbers, organizer Steve Bowery, former Salem and Wake Forest player Richard Goodpasture and former Northside/UVa player Walt Derey -- have a combined 12 young children among them.
"At the end of the camp last year, you could feel it in the air," said Goodpasture, 32, "that with all the kids being born ... it's probably going to be really hard for us to do it this year. But it wasn't officially said because nobody wanted to say it. It wasn't a fun decision to make."
Two years ago, the camp grew so popular that organizers had to turn 40 kids away. Derey got a strong taste of the interest when his cellphone number was posted as the camp's contact number on NFL.com.
"I had people calling from all over. 'I'm from Ohio and my kid loves Tiki Barber. When's the camp going to be?' " Derey said with a smile. "I was just like, 'Are you kidding me? You're going to come to a camp all the way out here?' "
Roanoke native Shannon Taylor, a former NFL standout and an ex-teammate of the Barbers at UVa, will still hold his annual football and cheerleading camp July 22-23 at Breckinridge Middle School.
Entering its fourth year, the camp is scheduled to feature football standouts John St. Clair, Alvin Porter, Wali Lundy and others. Taylor said he hopes his camp can continue for many years, but he understands why the Twins Camp hit a snag.
"Tiki and Ronde, they've got a long career and a lot of stuff going on outside of football," Taylor said. "I was faced with that in my first four years in the league. It was tough trying to figure out a good weekend to do it and have good people who can run it when you're not around."

Aaron McFarling
The Roanoke Times