‘It’s like currency’: Making people smile has this football player on Wichita billboards
In the opinion of Zackery Willis, smiling these days is more important than ever.
There are so many heavy topics that currently dominate the news cycle in America and tensions are high everywhere. That’s why Willis, a senior football player at Friends University who spends his time away from the gridiron helping people in the Wichita community, is more motivated than ever to put smiles on people’s faces.
“It’s kind of like currency to me,” Willis said, smiling himself. “Being able to put a smile on someone’s face, when I see it, I want more of it. It kind of picks me up. It motivates me and keeps you wanting to do more and more things to make other people smile.
“I mean, we all need to smile, right?”
Willis likes to do his work in relative anonymity.
Even if you’re a fan of Friends football, there’s a good chance you don’t know who No. 26 is on the field. That’s because Willis plays fullback, a rather thankless job where his only concern is paving the way for the running back to score the touchdowns and the glory.
But as Friends head coach Dion Meneley can attest, every football team needs players like Willis.
“I’ve known Zack for four years now and he’s just incredible from a character standpoint and a model teammate,” Meneley said. “He goes out of his way to find guys that aren’t fitting in or maybe need some attention and he’s there for them. He’s not a star player, but he is a guy who genuinely cares about people and that’s where he makes his mark.”
Away from football, the 5-foot-6, 200-pound football player spends his time chasing smiles through his work at an assisted living facility in Derby and volunteering at Big Brothers Big Sisters. It’s a lifestyle that was taught to him by his father, a police officer, and his mother, an assistant principal.
“I guess I was just raised on the values of giving back,” Willis said. “I love doing something for somebody and seeing that smile and their face light up. That’s the best reward: seeing that good energy.”
That’s what inspired him to become a mentor through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. After an extensive interview process, Willis was matched with Kamerynn, a 14-year-old from Wichita who enjoys playing video games, the outdoors, playing sports and also cats — all things that Willis also appreciates.
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Kamerynn is an Oklahoma football fanatic and Willis instantly earned cool points when he showed him pictures of him playing against Kennedy Brooks, OU’s all-Big 12 running back, in high school in Mansfield, Texas. Kamerynn had also never stepped on an actual football field, so Willis took him to the brand-new turf field at Friends.
“They really are a match made in heaven,” said Brittany Lawrence-Cockrell, the match support specialist at Big Brothers Big Sisters who facilitated the pairing. “It was crazy how quickly they clicked in the first 10 minutes of their first virtual meeting. They have a really strong bond and it was immediate and it was really cool to see that happen over Zoom.”
Over this summer, the two have been able to meet in person. The highlight has been a fishing trip at Gypsum Creek. Not because of the haul — in fact, neither of them caught a single fish — but rather because of the stories, conversation and laughter they shared.
The bond was forged even more after Willis, who is Black, and Kamerynn, who is white, had a discussion about the social injustices ongoing in America.
“We may have different color skin, but at the end of the day, I look at him and I only see my little brother and I am his big brother,” Willis said. “And there’s nothing that can cut between that. At the end of the day, we both just want to be treated equally.”
The coordinators at Big Brothers Big Sisters were so moved by the instant connection between Willis and Kamerynn that they decided to feature the duo on a handful of billboards around Wichita.
It all seems crazy to Willis, who will graduate from Friends next spring with a degree in visual communications. He came to Wichita not knowing what to expect and he’s still not sure what might come next — he’s interested in graphic design, videography and photography.
The one thing he is certain of? He wants to keep making people smile.
“It’s crazy coming from Dallas and not knowing anyone in Wichita and now this place is my home,” Willis said. “I love this city because it’s a big little city. It’s quiet and not too noisy. The people here are so nice. It’s crazy how things kind of spun into place for me and then joining the program and meeting Kamerynn was just like the icing on the top. I love that kind of good energy.”
This story was originally published August 5, 2020 at 10:08 AM.
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