The Ekern name is recognizable in Mexico. 

Multiple athletes with that name have ties to Mexico, including Hayden Ekern, as he returns to the Audrain County town to host a football camp with friend and new Mexico eighth-grade football coach AJ Logan. Ekern and Logan will lead the camp for kids in grades 3-12 on July 16 at Mexico High School’s football field.

Ekern is the son of former Bulldog and current Mexico eighth-grade football coach Andy Ekern, who is the reason for the connection between Hayden Ekern and Logan. The former University of Missouri defensive lineman and all-state Rock Bridge lineman Logan said Andy Ekern thought it would be a good idea to run a camp now that Logan is part of his staff and his son is the running backs coach at NCAA Division II Central Oklahoma. 

“I’m all for it,” Logan said. “I was missing the game after taking a year off to help raise my twins that are a year old now. Now it’s time to get back to football.”

Hayden Ekern is fresh off his senior season at Division II Minnesota State where he was the quarterback of the national semifinalist Mavericks. They finished with an 11-4 record for the program’s third straight nine-win season and fourth winning season with Ekern, who owns the school record of 73 career touchdown passes. 

“I wanted to put together a football camp because football has given both of us many opportunities and we met many great people,” Ekern said, speaking for himself and Logan. “It’s something to give back to the local kids.”

Ekern said he was the “baby of the family” and grew up and played in Chicago, but his parents are from Mexico and he moved back with his family after graduating high school. He said has always had other family in Mexico so he said would spend summers and holidays with cousins Kellen and Karsten when he was younger and is familiar with the area and people like Mexico High School football head coach Steve Haag.

In a week, Ekern and Logan expect to welcome many kids to the camp, which will donate proceeds to the Audrain County Crisis Intervention Services. With each kid comes another opportunity for the game to affect someone in a meaningful way. Ekern and Logan said they were young kids who grew into good men because of football.

“It’s a life game,” Ekern said. “You learn so much more than just X’s and O’s. Football is universal. People like the game, and it is something to do to get kids around, but you learn so many life lessons.”

Logan, who started playing at 5-years-old, said he wants to pass on the benefits of football to the Mexico community after what the game has meant to him. Without football, Logan said he wouldn’t be the man he is today after being “a bit of a problem child growing up.”

“The biggest one would be my high school coach AJ Ofodile,” Logan said when asked about the biggest football influence in his life. “He played at Mizzou himself and in the NFL. He was really a father figure to live up to and a positive male role model in my life when I didn’t really have that. It was good to lean on that and have somebody say, ‘Hey, I believe in you and you can do this.’”

Ekern said his father has been his coach over his whole career and was fortunate to have someone like him at Minnesota State in head coach Todd Hoffner. He attributes most of his football development to those two men.

Both men believe there is value in seeing kids of various ages playing football. Ekern and Logan plan to have the kids in one session from 8-11 a.m. on July 16. Ekern said he hopes the younger kids develop an interest in playing football in high school while the older kids can hopefully use football to further their education in the future.

“The younger kids are probably not going to be fundamentally sound technique-wise, but they’re out there to just learn football and spark interest,” Ekern said. “The 8 through 12 is more fundamentals and techniques, but it’s still just a children’s game in the end. It is pretty tough, but it’s a game you can play when you’re little.”

Neither Ekern nor Logan dismiss the challenges that come with football. While they mainly want to break down the game into bits of technique with the camp, they each acknowledge the difficulties of the football but also said those are the reason they and many others come out better.

Logan said football is “a good metaphor for life” because “it’s going to hurt and you’re going to get knocked down, but you’ve got to get back up and fight for that victory.” He said it is going to be uncomfortable at times, but growth can’t be achieved if there is no resistance. 

“People get coached differently and people take coaching differently, but it should never take away the love you have for the game and should never take away the love you have for your players,” Ekern said. “If you can spread that and infect that through everybody else, it just trickles down the line and great teams are made when everybody in the locker room loves each other. Not every day is going to be easy, but you just got to go and do it.”

Ekern was proud to share his accomplishments such as the national semifinals berth and all-time school touchdown pass record with his teammates. For Logan, he had 36 total tackles, 12 solo tackles and four tackles for loss in the 2015 and 2016 seasons for Mizzou but is proudest for making it to Mizzou and being the first of his brothers to graduate high school and earn a degree.

“Going to college and getting a degree from playing the game was the biggest accomplishment,” Logan said. “Now I can impact kids. I am an academic and behavioral interventionist at the high school, so every day, I get to work with kids on their grades and life skills.”

Logan said he and Ekern want to “plant that seed” of football interest and convince them to return to the field every year. They each have noticed that youth football numbers are down compared to when they were children so they would love to see that change.

For however many kids show up to this possible first edition of an annual camp, they want to see kids outside and active in a community that means something to each of them. Ekern and Logan believe there is much football talent in Mexico that can turn into enriching lives, but it all starts with moments like this camp. 

“There’s kids out there that are very talented and can take their abilities to the next level,” Ekern said. “But they really need to go out there and do it. It’s growing the game and giving back to people that gave so much to us.”