By Curt B. 

ACTRESS KEKE PALMER WILL KICKOFF “IT’S COOL TO BE SMART” ESSAY CONTEST FOR GIRLS THIS SUMMER DURING HER STARRING MOVIE ROLE WITH ICE CUBE IN “THE LONGSHOTS” 

The young actress Keke Palmer, who has starred in films such as Akeelah and the Bee and Tyler Perry ‘s Madeas Family Reunion, and now her new film with Ice Cube called “The Longshots” , has always been connected with her favorite charities since she was 12 years of age. Over the years Keke has participated with Boys & Girls Clubs in New York, Atlanta, and a special career day in Chicago at EBONY Magazine that was coordinated by “It’s Cool To Be Smart”. “We have been working with Mr. and Mrs. Palmer (Keke’s parents) on the majority of Keke’s community projects and they both have expressed the need for their daughter to be involved with her peers in the urban community, during her long future in film, television and music”, stated Curtis B. of It’s Cool To Be Smart”.

At this time, the next community project “It’s Cool To Be Smart” will be working on with Keke, will be a National Essay Contest called “Football, Shopping Malls and Telephone Calls”. It’s Cool To Be Smart Board Member/Song Writer, E. Walter Smith, created these essay contests as a series of writing assignments that gives the teens an opportunity on discussing their positive relationships with their parents as it relates to their favorite sports. Also teen girls will focus on why it’s cool to play sports as young ladies.

The contest will be in conjunction with Keke’s upcoming movie ,“The Longshots”, with Ice Cube and will be kicked off  in Washington D.C., Atlanta, New York, Philly, Chicago and Los Angeles. It’s Cool To Be Smart, will present all winners 1 00 dollars and tickets to go see the movie. Also Keke will be personally autograph all winning essays. 

WHY DID KEKE JOIN THIS ROLE IN THE MOVIE “THE LONGSHOTS”?

….From the Desk of Sharon Palmer (Keke’s mom) On Set 

Here we are in Shreveport, Louisiana filming the movie “The Longshots”. The movie is a true story about a little girl named, Jasmine Plummer, who at age 11 quarterbacks an all boys team to Pop Warner’s Nationals. Keke has been asked to play Jasmine, and she is so excited to be working with Ice Cube, who portrays Jasmine’s uncle/coach.

As soon as Keke heard that she would have to learn how to quarterback a football team for the movie, she was adamant about doing it right. She went into intense one-on-one training with Pastor Denny Duran, a Louisiana High School Football coach, who himself had been a professional quarterback. Keke was out there everyday for 6 weeks, doing drills, throwing the ball each day over one hundred times, just throwing that awkward shaped ball, her hands would cramp, her sides would ache. I was out there with her, in the cold, sometimes the hot sun. I saw first hand how tired she was, but she kept on moving determined to, “do it right”. I am sure Jasmine had experienced the exact same pains, and she was 2 years younger than Keke at the time. 

On this particular day, we had received word that the real Jasmine Plummer would be visiting the set. Keke was so excited and she had so many questions for Jasmine. I wanted to meet her mom and uncle just to tell them how proud I was as a parent to have Keke involved in such an inspirational story. A little girl quarterback on an all boys tackle football team was simply something I never thought was physically possible.

Now, I do know that girls work just as hard as boys in sports trying to achieve excellence, there is no doubt. However,  I am also aware that girls, no matter how hard they try , can never be as physically strong as boys, tackle football seemed to be the one sport that head to head a girl could never match up to a boy, but Jasmine and Keke proved me wrong!  They showed me that it is not all about strength, it is about adequately preparing to take on a challenge, and conquering it.

We were asked to come to the lunch area to meet Jasmine and her family. Immediately, we all hugged one another. Keke and Jasmine hit it off right away, she is now 15 and Keke is 14, so they had no problem communicating about boys, music, tv, whatever teenage girls chat about these days.  I found myself speaking with her uncle, whose real name is Frank Johnson.  Frank and I discovered that we had grown up in neighboring towns in Illinois and started to name landmarks in the area. He also confided in me that when the family first heard that Keke had been cast to play Jasmine, they all had ran out of the house into the streets screaming with excitement!  As a parent that made me feel good that they were pleased with the film company’s choice of Keke, but I inquired specifically how did Jasmine react to the news.

Frank said to me that it was very important to Jasmine, that the actress they cast to play her must look like a girl, not an overly exaggerated  tomboy because she was very sensitive to teasing.  She had been teased by other children about acting “like a boy”, and had even gotten into fights over it.  Jasmine was determined to prove that a girl can play a sport at a high level and still remain a girl. It was very important to her that she be portrayed as a girl who loved to play football, but also a girl who loved being a girl, and Jasmine felt that Keke was the perfect young actress to get that message out.

I was very touched by what Frank said, because as a child I too played football, baseball, and basketball with the boys. However, when I turned 13 and was in junior high a group of kids started to tease me, so I quit, left all of my guy friends, friends I had played with since the age of 5 in Kindergarten, just walked away to do, ” girl stuff”.

I imagine a lot of children have that problem. They want to fit in so badly that they walk away from things that they enjoy just to escape peer pressure. What I admire most about Jasmine Plummer is that she stood up to the teasing, she kept on doing what she loved , and now a major motion picture of her courage will be shown to children everywhere, amazing! Keke is so happy to be a part of this movie.

We all hugged again, vowing not to be strangers, after all we are from the same hood. Jasmine so tiny in stature smiled and waved goodbye, but this is only the beginning…………………”The Longshots” in theaters this fall!