Bodley
Golf Classic tees-off Monday
Memorial tournament to benefit Big Brothers Big
Sisters
Yardley
News - July 13,2006
Richard Pearl
More
than 80 golfers from both sides of the Delaware
are expected to tee-off Monday in a fund-raising
tournament in New Jersey that honors the memory
of a Yardley-area executive and pro-football agent
who was all about helping youngsters make the right
choices.
The
event is the third annual James Bodley, Sr. Memorial
Golf Classic, which begins at 12:30 p.m. July 17
at Mercer Oaks Golf Course in West Windsor, N.J.
Registration and a continental breakfast precede
play and an awards banquet follows.
Organized
by the Lambda Lambda Sigma graduate chapter of the
national Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, last year's
tourney raised more than $12,000 from golfers and
businesses to benefit both the Big Brothers Big
Sisters of Mercer County and the fraternity's college
scholarship fund.
The
BBBS Mercer, headquartered in Trenton, uses its
proceeds to support mentoring for youngsters ages
6 to 14 years, while Lambda Lambda Sigma awards
scholarships to Mercer-area young men.
Though
the tourney field is primarily male, female golfers
are welcome and do participate, organizers said.
Bodley,
known to his many friends as "Bud", served
on the boards of both the fraternity and BBBS Mercer.
In fact, said his widow, Linda, the original tournament
was "his brainchild" and he was its chairman.
She
said Bud had tried to get Big Brothers Big Sisters
included to tourney to help boost participation
and fundraising, but that didn't happen until 2004,
the year after Bud died at age 56. The tourney was
renamed for him.
The
Bodley's daughter, Deena, worked hard on the new
tourney, said her mother. "She was very creative,
had lots of ideas...She was very instrumental in
trying to make the first tournament a success."
Working
closely with tourney co-chairmen Jerry Lawson and
Hal Hills, "She made things happen," said
Linda.
Sadly,
Deena died not long after the tournament, but "she
saw it (become) successful," said her mother.
Who
was James E. "Bud" Bodley, Sr.?
He
was a college football player, and Army officer
and paratrooper, a corporate executive, and a pro
football players' agent (his first client was Troy
Vincent) and was also a tireless worker for both
his fraternity and BBBS Mercer.
He
was also the type who "never met a stranger
anywhere," said Linda, but was also "practical,
down-to-earth, no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is -
if a person wanted to hear it or not."
Bodley,
who went from 6 feet 195 pounds as a defensive back
at Prairie View (TX) A&M to about 250 pounds
in later years, was "an authoritarian figure,"
said Jerry Lawson.
"He
didn't talk much, but when he said something, people
listened. People respected him."
"He
made young people understand what was important
in life: education and how you carry yourself as
a young man," said Lawson.
"He
was visionary enough to see that young men could
stray in the wrong direction, and he wanted to make
a difference. That's why he was involved in community
service with the fraternity and became active with
Big Brothers Big Sisters," said Lawson, who
is a Johnson & Johnson executive, as was Bodley.
Bud
Bodley grew up in the town of Milton, in the western
Florida panhandle, during the Civil Rights movement
and the Vietnam War. A four year athletic scholarship
to Prairie View made him the first in his family
to go to college.
"He
studied, he was smart, he had ambition," recalled
the former Linda Blocker, the Houston native who
majored in engineering at Prairie View and became
Mrs. Bodley in 1970.
"His
philosophy was that if you went to college on a
scholarship and didn't get a degree, you had wasted
your time and opportunity," Linda said. "He
was serious about going to college and finishing
after four years with something."
While
there, he completed the Reserve Officer Training
Course (ROTC), thus graduating in 1970 both with
a degree in industrial technology and education
and an Army 2nd lieutenant commission.
In
1971, son James, Jr., arrived and papa Bud became
a paratrooper, earning "jump pay" to better
provide for his growing family.
After
his Army hitch, during which Bodley directed the
post's vehicle maintenance unit, he was hired by
J&J for its facility maintenance and engineering
department in Chicago. Linda became a construction
engineer for Mobile Oil.
In
1975, Deena was born and in 1980, the family moved
to Lower Makefield after Bud was transferred to
J&J's Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics plant in Raritan,
NJ.
James
Jr. and Troy Vincent became good friends and, when
Troy's mother moved back to Trenton, the Bodley's
let him stay with them for his junior and senior
years at Pennsbury High.
College
offers flooded in and to help young Vincent decide,
Bud Bodley drew up a chart listing each school's
advantages and 10 general questions - such as "What
does this or that college have to offer other than
football?"
"He
should have been a guidance counselor," said
Hills, Bodley's neighbor who, as a Mercer Big Brothers
board member, recruited Bud for BBBS and now is
the Bodley Classic treasurer.
Hills,
senior vice president and general auditor for Commerce
Bank, said that, besides raising money, it's also
important that the tourney draw young, athletic
men as potential Big Brothers.
Leon
Williams of Trenton, a tourney committee member,
frat brother and Big Brother, noted that "There's
a demand in community groups for educated young
black men."
"I
know it's hard (to make such a commitment), with
careers and family, but it's something I strongly
believe in, so I make the time to do it."
Williams
said the problem for teen and pre-teen youngsters
in Trenton "is more than just gangs...A lot
of kids get into trouble without gangs. A lot of
kids' lives don't have a positive direction."
"There
are no guarantees in life. But (if) you show them
a positive role model and give them one-on-one attention,
you can put a boy on the right track," he said.
Williams
denied that "every weekend you have to do 'something
exciting' in BBBS. This past weekend, my Little
Brother came over here and helped me clean my yard."
"It's
spending the one-on-one time with a child and talking
to him, trying to show him a positive role model,
not going to Great Adventure or the zoo. It's spending
time with him."
Williams
said while most kids in BBBS program are from single-parent
families, "they're from all socio-economic
backgrounds. For many of these young men, there's
not a consistent male role model in their life."
BBBS,
he said, merely seeks a weekly commitment of time,
even though it may not be in person every week.
Williams
noted Bud Bodley did "a lot of community service
in the greater Trenton area and that was magnificent,
because he lived in Yardley and didn't have to do
anything about Trenton. But he cared about the community
and put time and effort into it."
Lawson,
formerly of Yardley and now of Washington Crossing,
said Bodley told him, "There are more kids
at risk in Trenton than in Bucks County. A lot kids
are in single-parent households and we could have
a greater impact in Trenton."
Bodley
also used his connections at J&J to furnish
the refurbished Hamilton Township offices of BBBS
Mercer, recalled Pete Weaver, a former Morrisville
resident who retired in 2005 as BBBS Mercer executive.
The office wound up with beautiful cherrywood that
J&J had left from downsizing, said Weaver, now
of Atlantic City. But Bodley told him he wanted
no praise or recognition. "He was modest, like
it was no big deal," said Weaver.
Troy
Vincent asked the Bodleys to represent him after
he was drafted out of Wisconsin into the National
Football League. The couple hired attorneys and
financial advisors and represented Troy the first
couple of years before Vincent went solo.
Vincent
said Bud Bodley "was an instrumental part in
my life in molding and shaping me into the man that
I am today. I will go on the record saying that
I am not the only one who he has affected in this
manner."
The
Bodleys eventually represented players with the
Kansas City Chiefs, the L.A./St. Louis Rams, Buffalo
Bills, San Diego Chargers, Philadelphia Eagles,
Miami Dolphins and some Canadian teams.
"But
Bud kept his day job with J&J because the medical
coverage was so good," said Linda. "At
night and on weekends, though, he was a football
agent."
