When Jane Wilkins began as a team
mother for her son’s Northside Youth Organization football team some 40
years ago, she never could have pictured where it would take her.
Now,
after 35 years as the executive director, Wilkins will step down in
May. But not before the organization fetes her with a celebration
following its big parade Saturday.
Wilkins is modest about the
work she’s done to help expand the youth sports program over the years —
the tens of thousands of students who have passed through the program,
the millions of dollars raised. She’s helped lead the NYO from a
football-centric program with a few hundred boys to one that has nearly
5,000 children sign up each year...
