It’s back to school for Falcons kicker Elam

For Jason Elam, the big lure of signing with the Falcons after 15 years in Denver was coming home to familiar ground. On Tuesday morning the Brookwood High graduate had to smile at how familiar.

Riding in a limousine on the way to pick up an young student for “Take an NFL player to school” event, Elam rode past an old lot where he used to play pickup football every afternoon with his neighborhood buddies.

“I rode my bike over here,” said Elam, whose mother still lives in the house he grew up in only a few miles away. “There was a big field. Well, it seemed a lot bigger then.”

He was looking over his shoulder out the window to an area behind a house at the corner of Red Fox and Rivermist Drive in Lilburn.

That’s pretty much how the day would go for the three-time Pro Bowl kicker.

When he stopped to pick up 8-year-old Gunnar Samuelson and his family, Elam learned that the Gunnar’s father Frank coached youth football with Elam’s old long snapper at Brookwood.

And they had a mutual acquaintance in the neighborhood - Clay Cox - who was now a state representative.

Once they arrived at Head Elementary to a receiving line of Gunnar’s cheering classmates, Elam was approached by one person after another trying to play six degrees of separation with him: the school yearbook photographer, cafeteria workers, teachers - all wanting to know if Elam knew people they knew in his days at Gwin Oaks Elementary, Five Forks Middle School and Brookwood.

Elam was all smiles and good spirits with his young escort, who plays defensive end/tight end for his youth football team.

Gunnar was a little bashful on the big day - including some 600 students who gathered to greet Elam in the gym - but his mother Carol Samuelson said he’d been full of energy over the weekend, running around the house saying “I’m famous!” and threatening his 10-year-old brother Frank that, with any trouble, he wasn’t riding in the limo.

Gunnar and his NFL escort both wore Elam’s No. 1 Falcons jerseys - Jason in red and Gunnar in white. Gunnar got to try on Elam’s two Super Bowl rings from his days with the Broncos, which Elam carried in the front pocket of his jeans.

They also swapped signed photos.

Gunnar’s giving Elam an autograph in return was his mother’s idea, as was the whole day, really. She had signed her sons up online for the contest at NFLrush.com.

Samuelson, who is a full-time substitute teacher at Head Elementary, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in May. She learned she had it after a special needs student threw a chair that hit her in the head. A CT scan revealed the tumor, which turned out to be benign. She had surgery in May at Duke University.

“All summer long I entered every home-makeover contest I could,” said Samuelson, who spent time recuperating with a laptop. “What did I win? A NFL player coming to school.”

She was smiling when she said it, and smiling at the end of the day, which had included Elam fielding questions from students like “Can girls play professional football?” and “What was your longest kick?” to an impromptu kicking clinic with 15 youth simultaneously kicking NERF footballs.

“He was just a great guy, perfect,” Samuelson said. “I think the kids loved it. And it’s like he was coming home. That was the cool part.”

Elam thought so too.

“It brings back a lot of memories for me,” he said.

Shortly after that, he headed back for the limousine, where he asked the driver to make a quick stop-off on his way home to Braselton. He wanted to go by his mother’s house.