Blue Wahoos Co-Investor Derrick Brooks Perseveres To Make Charity Golf Tourney Happen 

Derrick Brooks never let setbacks deter his goals throughout his entire football career.

That same determination applied when it came to ensuring his charity golf tournament happened this year in Pensacola.

After being rescheduled multiple times, the event finally occurred without a hitch November 29 at Pensacola Country Club and featured a full field of teams.

Brooks, a Pensacola native and Blue Wahoos co-investor, in addition to all his varied other philanthropic interests, was grateful the first Derrick Brooks Covenant Care Classic golf tournament finally happened. Partnerships with entities such as Covenant Care, also a Blue Wahoos partner, enabled the event to endure a pair of weather-related postponements earlier this year.

“Mother Nature, she spoke, and we had to listen,” said Brooks, laughing, about the recent attempts thwarted to hold the golf event. “But my goal was to make sure this tournament happened in 2021 no matter what.

“It’s about putting on good tournament, a good product and earning the community’s trust. And that is what I want to continue to do. I want to put action behind words and put funding and programs into the dollars we raise and thus far we’ve had a formula that has worked.

Brooks, who resides in Tampa, became one of Pensacola’s all-time greatest athletes. He rose from youth football in the Salvation Army league into prep stardom at Booker T. Washington, to acclaim as All-American linebacker at FSU, then into NFL greatness with the Tampa Bay Bucs.

He helped the Bucs win their first Super Bowl title, leading him into NFL immortality as one of just 31 linebackers enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

His playing career immediately transitioned into business success, where he co-founded the Brooks-DeBartolo Collegiate High School in Tampa, as well as various other endeavors in Tampa and Pensacola. He sponsored the NFL Flag Pensacola youth flag football league, which has been played at both Blue Wahoos Stadium and the University of West Florida the past several years.

He wants to make the Covenant Care Classic tournament in Pensacola an annual event, much like his tournament in Tampa has been a staple in the community.

It was originally supposed to happen in April 2020. That was when the first onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic hit.

It was then rescheduled four more times – once by a tropical storm, the other time after days of rain – to finally be staged before 2021 ended. A number of Pensacola businesses stepped up with sponsorship dollars to help make it possible.

“We had 17 teams (four players each) and just to hang on to 17 teams through all of that showed to me that people wanted to be part of it, but they also knew what kind of a cause it was going to be,” said David Wilson, the tournament director, who has also been Brooks’ point person to direct the popular NFL Flag Pensacola youth flag football league.

The Blue Wahoos lent support by arranging for a group of front-office staff members to play, as well as contribute to a sponsorship.

Brooks flew in on private aircraft from Tampa, where he now lives, following his decorated Hall of Fame career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He brought former Major League Baseball star Gary Sheffield, along with former Florida Gators and NFL receiver Reidel Anthony and former FSU receiver Kevin Knox, a teammate with Brooks and Niceville native.

Those four were joined locally by former NFL players Josh Sitton and Fred Robbins, along with Reese’s Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy, former MLB player Greg Litton, former pro golfer and PGA instructor Adrian Stills, now general manager of Osceola Golf Course, long-time WEAR-3 TV sports director Dan Shugart and Pensacola business entrepreneur and mayoral candidate D.C. Reeves as celebrity players in the tournament.

Though it began under cool temperatures, it was a cloudless, light wind day to play golf.

“This plan has been in the making for a long time,” Brooks said. “It started with our flag football league. That set the foundation for many other programs we plan to do here. This tournament is the first of many to come.

“I get excited talking about it. Obviously, the pandemic has delayed things. (Nov. 29), it’s finally getting our tournament off to a good start and it’s going to be the first step in the right direction.”