Arian Foster made music privately last offseason with Bun B

The 2013 Texans draft class will attend the NFL Rookie Symposium from June 23-26.

The symposium is hosted by the NFL to emphasize the sport’s legacy, tradition of character and leadership and social and professional responsibility. The four-day orientation at the Bertram Hotel in Aurora, Ohio, will introduce the new Texans and the rest of the 2013 NFL Draft class to life in the NFL prior to the rookies reporting to training camps next month.

All nine of the Texans’ draft picks will attend the conference, including DeAndre Hopkins, D.J. Swearinger, Brennan Williams, Sam Montgomery, Trevardo Williams, David Quessenberry, Alan Bonner, Chris Jones and Ryan Griffin. A number of former NFL players including Pro Football Hall of Famers Jim Brown and Richard Dent will be in attendance to share with the first-year players their success stories as well as the challenges they have faced in their football careers and personal lives. The rookies will visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame in nearby Canton, Ohio, as part of the symposium.

“We believe in our peer-to-peer model that the more information these young men have on how those before them handled success, the better prepared they will be to meet expectations on and off the field,” NFL senior vice president of player engagement Troy Vincent said in a press release from the league. “Through our speakers there is a story to be told, a lesson to be learned, a teachable moment, a message of success in conveying our number one objective which is to provide our rookies the tools to succeed during their NFL playing experience and beyond.”

The Rookie Symposium includes presentations, videos and workshops on player health and safety, decision making, mental health, substance abuse, non-discrimination and maintaining positive relationships. Each player also will participate in a PLAY 60 youth football clinic with children from the Cleveland area at the Cleveland Browns Training and Administrative complex.

Running back Arian Foster made music privately last offseason with Bun B, a Texas rap legend who lives in Houston and is a vocal supporter of the Texans.

Foster, a philosophy major at the University of Tennessee, writes poetry and music in his free time off the field. He has called writing “one of my first passions and one of my first loves.” The three-time Pro Bowler approached Bun B about music after signing a new multi-year contract with the Texans last March.

“After he got his extension, he was like, ‘Man, I got some things – I just want to finally take a deep breath,’” Bun B said Monday on the “Off the Turf with Scurf” podcast. “He doesn’t really make music that he feels like he needs to put out a mix tape or make an album or feel like he needs to share or any of that kind of thing. It’s kind of more of a release for him because he does rapping as well as spoken word, as well as poetry. He’s very well-read, and he’s very well-written, as well. We just get together and just make music, not for commercial release but just for cultural expression.”

Foster has shared some of his poetry but has not released any music to date, nor has he stated plans to do so anytime soon. But Bun B, who was nominated for two Grammys and won BET and MTV awards as part of the rap duo UGK, is impressed with his talent.

“I think he’s really good,” Bun B said. “I think people would be really surprised to hear him do his thing. I remember we were at Connor’s (Barwin) going-away party, and he and Andre (Johnson) were talking about him rapping and he’s like, ‘Bun, tell this man I can rap, yo. Tell this dude I can rap.’ I’m telling him like, ‘Dre, he can go.’ Dre’s like, ‘Alright,’ I’m like, ‘No, he’s actually really good, ‘Dre. You’ll have to come check him out.’ So ‘Dre was like, ‘Alright, I’m going to check him out.’ Now, I don’t know how much rapping he does in the locker room. I don’t know if those guys are even listening to him doing any of that. It’s just funny, man. He’s really proud of what he can do, and he should be.”

-- More Story :story.officialnflfansshop.com

-- If you need the Nike NFL Jerseys:Click Here