Wichita native Kamerion Wimbley staying busy after NFL retirement

Retirement, for most professional athletes, means becoming untethered from the life they’ve always known.

No more fans. No more fame. And, in most cases, no more income.

These are things, it seems, that have not occurred to Kamerion Wimbley since the 32-year-old Wichita native and former first-round draft pick retired last May after nine NFL seasons.

Mainly because he’s just been too darn busy.

“It’s really been great, I’ve been able to spend a lot of time with my family,” Wimbley said. “My daughters are very active with school activities and sports. … I’m at a lot more soccer games and dance recitals and things of that nature.”

And there’s work – lots of it. Wimbley, who lives in Tampa, Fla., manages a diverse business portfolio that he can fully oversee now that he’s retired.

In Wichita, there’s a restaurant, Wings & Things, along with a barber shop and a hair salon. There’s real-estate holdings, commercial and residential. There’s a dog-breeding business in Florida, Gold Label Kennels, along with a dog registry, the Bulldog Breed Coalition Registry.

“I’ve had managers in place to run those businesses when I’m playing football, but now I can be involved on a day-to-day basis and on the weekends, I’m usually traveling for different dog shows,” said Wimbley, who played outside linebacker for the Cleveland Browns, Oakland Raiders and Tennessee Titans. “Now, I can put things in place that I like or envision and I think will be great for the company. I really enjoy taking part in the opening of a business, of the opportunity that presents and the challenges that come after that.”

And if Wimbley wasn’t already busy enough, he’s put together a star-studded football camp that comes to Wichita’s Cessna Stadium on July 14. The Wichita Dreams Football Camp for grades 1-12 is free and its 450 spots filled up quickly.

Wimbley said the camp will feature some well-known football players from Wichita, including Blake Bell, Arthur Brown, Bryce Brown and Chris Harper. Wings & Things will donate all of the food for campers.

“I was able to link up with some guys who came out of Wichita, like me, and I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this since Barry Sanders used to have his camp in Wichita,” Wimbley said. “I had the opportunity, last year, to step back and really see how I wanted to put this together and get advice from people who’d already been through putting on camps to see what works and what doesn’t.

“I reached out to Brian Butler, who is somebody I used to go back and work out with, to have him speak with people like Bryce and Arthur and Chris to get them on board … I look at all those guys like little brothers and have a lot of respect for Brian, so it’s something special to be able to go back and work with them and collaborate with those guys to give back to Wichita. I know how much of an impact it had on me to go to Barry’s camps when I was a kid, so hopefully we can have that same effect.”

Butler, who has run football camps around Wichita for years, met Wimbley 18 years ago, when he was a freshman at Northwest.

“That first day, he came out to go through a workout and I went pretty hard at them,” Butler said. “It was brutal ... I think we ran 30 sets of stairs at Cessna Stadium and at the end (Wimbley) was the only one left standing. That day, I thought I probably could’ve told him to run to the west side and he would’ve done it.

“That’s always been Kamerion, though. He’s just driven. All he knows is work, and at the end of the day, he has the mindset to give back to the community he came from and I’m thankful for that. Thankful he’s willing to do things like this camp, which I think is going to be a big success.”

This story was originally published June 10, 2016 at 11:01 AM with the headline "Wichita native Kamerion Wimbley staying busy after NFL retirement."