NFL alumnus Josh Sitton started planning for his post-NFL career while he was a Pro Bowl guard in Green Bay in 2014.
The Packers fourth-round draft pick in 2008, Sitton later played with the Bears in 2016-17 and started in the Dolphins 2018 season opener but tore his rotator cuff which ended his season and his 11-year playing career.
Sitton did not feel sorry for himself. Rather, he and his boyhood buddy Chris Jaubert founded Bear General Contractors which now is headquartered in their hometown of Pensacola, Florida. Sitton claims the company’s name has everything to do with the last four letters of Jaubert’s surname and nothing to do with his two seasons in Chicago.
Sitton was born in Jacksonville but soon moved with his family across the state to Pensacola. He played his high school ball at Pensacola Catholic and then migrated to Orlando where he started all four years at the University of Central Florida.
Bear General Contractors has grown in recent years and its current projects include a large six-million-dollar storage unit project on the North side of Pensacola and a five million dollar renovation plus construction of two new buildings at Sitton’s high school alma mater. The new locker room will be named after Sitton who is a generous benefactor of the school.
While COVID-19 may have placed some future construction projects on hold, Sitton’s personal acts of kindness in the Florida Panhandle have not slowed down.
Earlier this year, he was honored by the Pensacola Freedom Foundation for his commitment to the community. Sitton also was inducted into the Pensacola Sports Hall of Fame last February.
During these stressful COVID-19 days, Sitton, his wife Kristen and their Bear General colleagues have placed even a greater emphasis on giving back. For example, they have been busy each week serving meals to the workers at Baptist Hospital in town and volunteering at food banks in cooperation with the Pensacola Police Department.
Last month, worried families began lining up at 5 A.M. on Easter near the city’s Legion Field while Sitton and a large group of volunteers placed 1,100 lunches, 1,500 bags of vegetables and 1,500 Easter baskets into hundreds of cars during a “Grab N Go Easter Giveaway”.
“We wanted to do something to help folks on a very different Easter Sunday,” says Sitton. “When you do something like this, you hope the attention it receives will have other people see it and want to help. It’s awesome to know you are doing something that helps others. Our community needed it. We needed to come together like this.”
Sitton, who turns 34 next month, may have retired prematurely from football last year but he continues to have an impact in his second career. His good deeds in Pensacola continue to benefit thousands of neighbors in the region.
We at NFL Alumni salute Josh Sitton and all of you who are generously giving back to your towns during this unprecedented period of economic and medical uncertainty.
We hope all of you are able to stay healthy and safe.
