Gurley Wadood Jr. is a rising third grader at 54th Street Elementary School in View Park.
He's a very typical 9-year-old kid. He likes playing video games and hanging out with his friends.
And he loves sports. Although he is active in baseball, track and field, and karate, his favorite athletic activity is by far soccer.
After an impressive first season in rapper Snoop Dogg's youth football league, Wadud signed a name, image and likeness deal with sports and entertainment agency Family 4 Life.
According to his father, this is a six-figure NIL deal.
Well, he may not be your typical kid.
But Gurley Wadud Sr. says her son doesn't seem to know that.
“Nothing has changed,” he told the Times. “Right now, I just finished eating dinner. We're doing an interview and I'm on the phone. Then he goes back to his room and plays Madden and calls his sons and has a good old-fashioned group chat. He doesn't really know what's going on.”
The Snoop Youth Football League was founded in 2005 by Snoop Dogg and Khalil Wadud, the league's commissioner and brother of Wadud Sr. Wadud Sr. has served as a volunteer coach intermittently, including this season when his son was old enough to play tackle football.
Gurley Wadoud Jr. poses with the trophy he won during the inaugural season of the Snoop Youth Football League.
(Wadoud family)
Wadud Jr. made the most of his opportunities, winning team MVP, top receiver and top defensive back trophies. Last week, when young players' NIL contracts were announced, Snoop Dogg tweeted this news.
Wadud Sr. shares his son's love of soccer. The former Dorsey High School and San Jose State University defensive back held various coaching and front office jobs at the youth, high school and college levels before taking over as the Rams' high school coordinator of football development last year.
Still, when Wadud Jr. is at home with his parents and four sisters, soccer doesn't come up as often as he would like.
“We're here to talk business,” Wadud Sr. said. He is using his contract with NIL as an opportunity to introduce his own concept beyond athletics, which could ultimately be more important to his son's future.
“There's a lot of business going on behind the scenes. For example, we're getting a lot of attention for football and how athletic he is, which is great. We're getting attention. It gives us the opportunity to start teaching our kids about financial literacy, business, and ownership at an early age.”
Wadud Sr. gave the example of a hypothetical $400,000 home.
“Girly, can you leave me $400,000?” he asked his son. “How much do you want to drop?”
Wadud Jr. answered without hesitation.
“3.5 percent,” he said.
The father smiled with satisfaction at that answer.
“So this is how he's learning and we're trying to get there,” Wadood Sr. said. “He's just a kid, so we're going to have fun, and we're going to teach him these things in the process.”
Now, young Wadud has one word of plans for his future.
“football.”
His father is happy about that because he knows his son is ready for a future outside of football as well.
“He's still a kid. We're going to continue to let him live his life and make his dreams come true,” Wadud Sr. said. “But we're going to continue to push for the business end, you know, because we don't want him to put all of his marbles into being successful in the NFL, so we're going to continue to push for the business end, you know, because we don't want him to put all his marbles into being successful in the NFL, so we're going to continue to push for the business end. He's just thinking outside the box. I'm just trying to open him up to look at things other than sports.”
