The Former NFL Player Saving Thousands Of Lives

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Friends,

“What happens when Chris Long, Joe Buck, and Brad Pitt’s brother walk into a bar?”

Communities are transformed and thousands of lives are saved.

Let me explain…

In 2013, now-retired NFL player Chris Long traveled to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro - the highest mountain in Africa. After conquering the summit, Long started to think of ways he could give back to a country that provided him with such an incredible experience.

Shortly after returning to the hotel, Chris Long ran into Joe Buck and Doug Pitt at the bar downstairs. As Goodwill Ambassador to Tanzania, Doug Pitt was in town building a sustainable water well - with Joe Buck along to assist.

Pitt and Buck explained the problem - Local Tanzanian citizens were dying from their inability to access clean water.

Long couldn’t believe the breadth of the water crisis. After returning home from the East African nation, he decided to get involved.

Today we’ll take a look at how Chris Long transformed his grave concerns to tangible action, changing the way local citizens live, and ultimately - saving thousands of lives.

(Image Source: Clay Cook)

The reality of the situation in Tanzania, and many other countries throughout the world, is terrifying and something a lot of us take for granted.

Here are a few stats I found when researching the subject (Source):

• Almost 800M people globally (1 out of 9) lack clean, drinkable water.

• By 2025, half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas.

• In Tanzania, 1 in 5 children will die under the age of 5 due to water related illness.

• Women are impacted the most, as they’ll collectively spend over 200 million hours each year gathering water.

After hearing and seeing the impact of these unbelievable statistics firsthand, Chris Long decided to assist Doug Pitt in his journey to provide clean and sustainable water to local Tanzanian citizens.

How?

“The Waterboys”.

(Image Source: Clay Cook)

The Waterboys, founded by Chris Long in 2015, launched with the idea of installing 32 water wells within local Tanzanian communities - one representing each team in the NFL.

With an individual well costing over $50,000, Long started to look for unique ways to educate and raise money.

This is where “Conquering Kili” came in.

Chris Long and former NFL player/Army Green Beret Nate Boyer started putting together fundraising trips. The two recruited groups of NFL players, retired military personnel, and even charitably inclined citizens to attempt the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Each person would have a fundraising goal, and the total money raised would be put toward the installation of water wells within Tanzania.

With the help of countless others, Chris Long and The Waterboys were able to meet their goal of 32 water well installations by February 2018 - only 3 years after launching the program.

The Conquering Kili initiative alone would’ve been commendable, but seeing the impact their mission for clean water had on local citizens, Chris Long doubled down.

In the years since, Chris Long has worked with NBA player Malcom Brogdon to expand the initiative within the NBA.

“Hoops2o” is now the NBA arm of Waterboys, designed to involve NBA players, coaches, and front office executives in the same mission to provide clean water to African citizens. In the first year of NBA expansion, NBA players combined to fund a total of 5 water wells - changing the lives of 35,000 people in the process. Since then, more than 10 NBA players have joined the initiative along with increased support form the G-league and abroad.

(Image Source: Clay Cook)

In addition to Africa, Long has also recently launched Hometown H2O - a US based initiative to provide “low-income, rural and tribal US communities access to safe and affordable water.”

From an athlete perspective, here is a non-exhaustive list of participants:

• Myles Garrett

• Kyle Long

• Taylor Lewan

• Malcolm Brogden

• Justin Anderson

• Joe Harris

• Zack Martin

• Joe Thomas

• Johnny Hekker

• Coach Tony Bennett

• and many more…

In total, The Waterboys and its respective affiliates, have provided clean and accessible water to about 350,000 people.

With Chris Long officially retiring from the NFL in 2019, and being able to focus on this full-time, it seems clear The Waterboys will eventually reach their goal of helping provide clean and accessible water to over 1 million people.

Through a combination of humbleness, hard work, and compassion, Chris Long has literally saved thousands of lives. This is just one example of athletes using their fame, money, and influence to positively impact the world.

Almost all the sourced content for this email was pulled from The Waterboys website. If you’d like to learn more about their mission, or get involved in some capacity, you can visit their page here.

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Extra Credit

In 2016, Clay Cook tagged along with Chris Long in Tanzania to record promotional footage for the charity. Along the way, Cook took some pretty amazing photo’s - which you can see here.

Below are some of my favorites.

(Source: You can view all the images here.)

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