Video: Ovie Mughelli on Sports and the Environment

At our 2018 Climate Leadership Gala, former NFL player Ovie Mughelli spoke about his work as an environmental activist and answered the question he gets about why he is now in the environmental space. “The reason is simple. I’m an athlete. Since I’ve been you know five, six years old, since I came out of the womb, I’ve been running, I’ve been playing I’ve been jumping, catching footballs, throwing baseballs. I love playing outside. My question is, Why aren’t more athletes involved? People say, Why are you involved? Why aren’t more athletes involved? We breathe more air than you guys. We drink more water than you guys. We play on the planet. We are always outside. We don’t want to be in the situation where we’re wearing gas masks to play the sport we love. We don’t want to be in a situation where we’re wondering, you know, back in my day I used to have green trees, I used to have clean air, I used to have clean water. We want to make sure and preserve that for the next generation. Me and my lovely wife and I had the opportunity to create the Ovie Mughelli Foundation because we realized that the kids who care the least about the environment are affected the most by the environment. We want to give them something where it connects to them. So we try to use sports as a way to be a catalyst to promote sustainability….” Full speech below.