I guess you could say I'm a pillar of the community.
I grew up in a rough neighborhood in Akron, Ohio.
Street life didn’t appeal to me, but neither did the police. They would drive by and mean-mug me while I was throwing a baseball in my front yard. One time I even got thrown on a cop car like Ricky from Boyz n the Hood. For doing nothing.
My circumstances weren’t the greatest when I was young, but I stayed out of trouble and focused on sports. After getting recruited by almost every school in the country to play football, I chose the University of Kansas. I played college ball for three years before returning home to help raise my first child.
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I was 6’6”, 255 lbs. – selling vacuum cleaners as I tried out for the NFL.
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Next, I worked as a Corrections Officer at a detention center. It was bad. Some guys quit on their first day and never came back. Some guys got beat up by the kids. I was definitely put in positions where I had to rough some kids up, but afterward, I’d sit them down and explain...
“Hey, listen, you're not on the streets, okay? In here, you lost your freedom. Now, it’s my job to tell you what to do and how to act. Okay? Now, let's talk about you and why you're here.”
Once you’ve opened that door, you can start connecting with them.
Some of the police officers, who brought the kids in, came to me and said, “I don’t know what you’re doing to these kids, but they respect you and talk highly of you. You need to take the police test.”
Hesitantly, I talked myself into taking the exam and have been a Police Officer with the City of Canton Police Department for the past twenty years. It’s been one of the biggest blessings of my life - along with my children. It has allowed me to connect with the youth and our community.
It also paved the way for my greatest accomplishment.
A few years ago, I fulfilled a lifelong dream, starting the Be A Better Me Foundation to help guide our youth to make better decisions that will impact their world and ours. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and I see the results, first-hand, every single day. Now, it is my mission to spread even more hope and love throughout cities across the country. Join me and support a brighter future for us all.
Let’s be the change together.
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