By Ken Jackson
Sports Writer

While Kissimmee’s kids may have lost one of their best advocates, Joe Day’s family is adamant that his vision of providing a positive outlook for life through sports remains strong.

Day, the driving force behind the Osceola Family Sports Association, passed away Sunday morning following a heart attack three days earlier. He was 58.

Day ran for the Osceola County Commission district 2 seat in 2007.

In 2002, Day and his wife Beverly started OFSA, taking out a personal credit line to purchase the football equipment and rent fields. It wasn’t a money-making venture — he spent as much time seeking sponsors to pay the debt down as he did registering players. Day was trying to find a better influence for at-risk kids than they might find on the streets.

“These kids are like fish, you have to get them in the boat to clean them up. Sports is the bait to catch the fish,” he was quoted as saying.

The league’s football and cheerleading teams for children ages 4-14, the Osceola Panthers, were annual staples in the postseason “Super Bowl” hunt in the Mid-Florida Conference, which stretches from Orange to Polk counties. Their best year was 2005, when five age groups advanced to the conference title game. In 2009, the seniors team advanced to the Super Bowl and won the American Youth Football national championship game at Austin-Tindall Park.

OFSA also briefly had a track program, and Day continually tried finding the sponsorship for a boxing program, another of his passions — he was the Central Florida Heavyweight champion in 1974.

Mike Gomez, an OFSA coach for all seven years and later the vice president, said Day was the influence many area kids desperately needed.

“Joe’s had an incredible impact on this community. My phone’s been blowing up all week with people asking what happened,” he said. “He touched a lot of kids. He used to ride through these ‘hoods, picking kids up for practice because he knew they had no ride.”

Day was born July 12, 1951 in Miami, but he lived in many locales. His father, Jim Day, was a government consultant. He played fullback at West Texas State in 1971, but a knee injury cut his football career short. He also lived in Ohio and worked at a family meat-packing factory in Nicaragua.

He last worked for Maronda Homes as an inspector and service manager.

The Days have eight children, girls Holly, Amber and Summer and boys Matt, Josh, Caleb, David and Joey. The boys all played football at Gateway High over a span of 15 years. The first of Joe and Beverly’s seven grandchildren, ages 4 months to 14 years, will start at Gateway next year.

The family also adopted Cedric Houston, a 2004 Gateway grad, who earned All-Conference honors as a return specialist for Missouri Western University this season as a senior. But, more importantly, he will graduate in May with a degree in sports management.

The Days took him in during his sophomore year, after he’d been expelled from Gateway and another alternative school.

“He helped me set up a meeting with the school board, and with Joe on my side, I was able to get back in,” Houston said. “He was a coach, a minister and most of all a father to me. It scares me to think where I’d be without him.”

Gomez said that it was faith on many levels that kept Day going this past year despite poor health and a weak economy that cut into many sponsorships.

“I never met someone so ready to go,” Gomez said. “He was at peace with his mortality because of his relationship with Christ.”

Josh Day, who took on some of his father’s duties (including picking up the players for practice) this season, said OFSA will continue.

“Helping kids was his passion, his vision,” Josh said. “We want to make it clear that the association will still go on. ”

Services will be at The Rock Church, 5515 W. U.S. Highway 192 (near mile marker 10) Saturday at noon, with viewing starting at 11 a.m.

Burial will follow the service at Osceola Memory Gardens.  In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the OFSA. Information can be found at www.leaguelineup.com/osceolapanthers.