With a criminal career that takes in cocaine trafficking, rolling with Los Angeles gangs, weapons charges and a murder trial, he might be an unlikely role model.
However, Snoop Dogg, infamous for violent, misogynous lyrics and a lifelong love of marijuana, is shaking off his bad boy image to reveal his softer side — as avuncular little league football trainer “Coach Snoop.”
The 44-year-old founded the Snoop Youth Football League more than a decade ago and has been quietly teaching thousands of inner city children teamwork, discipline and self-respect through sport.
Photo: AFP
Now his little-known community work is to be made public in Coach Snoop, a reality show chronicling the rise of his Diamond Valley Steelers from a rag-tag bunch of 12-year-olds from the mean streets of Los Angeles to one of the top youth teams in the US.
“The experiences I give these kids, it’s nothing to me, but it means the world to them and I’m just privileged to be able to take my Snoop Dogg power and use it to sprinkle all this love to these kids,” Snoop said.
Sporting spectacles and his dreads tied back in a ponytail, Snoop comes across as an enlightened, urbane father figure, imparting wisdom to his proteges, many of whom come from single-parent families in tough neighborhoods.
Most of the children know who he is, but the millionaire musician is at pains to keep his R-rated hip-hop persona away from the football field.
“I’ve never busted a rap for the kids. Thirteen years I’ve been coaching, I ain’t never did one rap,” Snoop said at a preview screening of Coach Snoop in Hollywood on Monday. “If a kid calls me Snoop Dogg they gotta do 20 push-ups. They know they don’t get Snoop Dogg until they hit 19 or 20.”
The show was directed by multiple Emmy award-winning sports filmmaker Rory Karpf, who helmed the ESPN miniseries Snoop and Son, about the rapper’s relationship with his son, University of California, Los Angeles wide receiver Cordell Broadus.
“It was actually shocking — I didn’t realize how involved he was. He’s involved to the point where he’s sitting down with these kids talking about their grades and home life, and bullying,” Karpf told reporters. “What he says on the series is this is his true calling, and he looks at music as a means to an end.”
He launched the league in 2005, with the participation of 1,300 children in the Los Angeles area.
It has expanded across California and beyond in the past decade and, in 2014, produced its first NFL players.
The nine-episode Coach Snoop tells the story of Snoop’s inner-city Steelers, their triumphs and disappointments over the course of a season, and the lessons they learn on and off the field.
“These kids surprise me, they shock me. We’ve had kids that went on to become lawyers, doctors, firemen,” Snoop said. “It’s not just the football players, it’s not just boys in the league, it’s cheerleaders, it’s girls in this league — it’s lives that we’re shaping and changing and molding.”
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite