Hardwear Sessions

Marquis Perrilliat, son of Mountain Hardwear Employee Mark Perrilliat, is on the undefeated and unscored Berkeley Junior Bears Pop Warner football team which is featured in an ESPN story called, Choosing Between Death and Football.

The Junior Bears are undefeated and unscored on this year. | Photo by Tim Keown/ESPN.com

By Tim Keown
Say you drive by an old softball field next to an old schoolhouse like the one on the 6200 block of San Pablo Avenue in Oakland, Calif. There are a bunch of little kids out there in blue-and-gold football uniforms, 11 of them moving together like mercury under the dim lights. You glance over, maybe take a look until the traffic light turns green. Then you're gone.

But let's take a closer look. Park next to the playground, walk across the asphalt, through the infield dirt -- careful to tiptoe through the goose poop -- and onto the grass. See that guy in the blue-and-gold windbreaker and the blue-and-gold baseball cap and the huge smile? That's 47-year-old Todd Walker, the assistant coach of the Berkeley Junior Bears Pop Warner football team. You want to know what sports can do? Spend a few minutes listening to Coach Walker.

>>Read it here.