06/23 — It was a weekend of homecomings for at least three Jets vets.

WR Jerricho Cotchery and S Kerry Rhodes returned to their Alabama roots — along with some of their Green & White friends — to give the kids of the Birmingham area some fun and games, a football camp, and some words of inspiration.

"I wanted to give kids in Birmingham opportunities I didn't have," Cotchery told the Birmingham News. "Well, not opportunities. I had opportunity. I just didn't have many resources. And I always figured if I made it, I wanted to come back to help kids understand about setting goals, achieving them and making decisions that would help them become successful."

Jerricho and his wife, Mercedes, who established the Cotchery Foundation last year, and Rhodes hosted a bowling party at the Lightning Strikes in Trussville — does that say sweet home Alabama? — for kids from the area's Boys and Girls Clubs.

The party included a list of Jets that included noted charity-kegling QB Chad Pennington, RB Leon Washington, G Brandon Moore, CB Justin Miller and former Jets draft choice Titus Adams, now a DT with the Bengals. Pennington had a wedding to attend in West Virginia on Saturday, but the rest of the Jets stayed to serve as counselors for the second annual Cotchery-Rhodes one-day football camp at Legion Field.

"We want to encourage kids and their parents — particularly the parents — to get kids involved in activities that keep them from just sitting around," said the man we've come to know as J-Co. "I just want these kids to know that somebody believes in them."

And in Sioux City, Iowa, Matt Chatham staged his Soft Bowl I before what  the Sioux City Journal described as "a modest turnout" for some good local causes: to benefit the activities departments of the city's public schools as well as the Little Sioux Boy Scout Camp, damaged by a recent tornado.

"It's great to see all these young faces out here," said Chatham, a product of Sioux City's North High and nearby University of South Dakota, who invited K Mike Nugent and QB/WR Brad Smith to town for the event. "We have a great group of guys here who love to shake hands and hang out with the kids.

"I know this is an inaugural event, so there's a little bit of a 'We need to show you what our product is' type of deal, but it's definitely going to grow bigger and expand. I want the people of Siouxland to let me know what you want out here, what you want to be entertained by."

The people of Jetland will be entertained by Chatham, Cotchery, Rhodes and all the other Jets players getting rested up for the next several weeks, then coming back refreshed for the biggest preseason and regular season of their professional lives.