By Mark Eckel | Engagement Insider
Chris Ward never forgot how difficult it was going from high school to college, and his goal is to make it a little easier for today’s youth.
Ward, who was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in 1997, played for the Ravens and the Tennessee Titans, as well as the Scottish Claymores of NFL Europe, has started the Transition Awareness Program (TAP) to help high school athletes adjust to college life.
“It’s based off my experience,’’ Ward said. “I grew up in Atlanta and went to the University of Kentucky. It was a big, a huge, adjustment. From the culture, to the climate, everything was different and I wasn’t prepared. I’m going from a relatively mild state to a cold state where it snowed a lot.’’
That change in the weather was just part of the adjustment Ward had to make and how he is helping others to adjust now.
“I was not prepared at all to go to college, let alone play football too,’’ Ward said. “My first semester my grade point average was 0.07, I was James Bond. That’s what they called me, James Bond. But I was 18 years old, I’m away from home, I’m free. I was a mess.’’
Ward red-shirted his freshman year, and never messed up on the field. It was everything else.
“Hey, football was fine, as long as you were on time for meetings and didn’t miss practice you were good,’’ he said. “But I did everything else. I would check out after curfew and go to parties. I was big on the parties. Again, I was 18. I was a boy turning into a man, but I wasn’t a man.’’
Finally after receiving his grades and being put on academic probation where his scholarship was now in jeopardy, a call home got Ward back on track.
“I called my mom and told her college life just wasn’t for me,’’ Ward said. “I told her I was going to come home. And she asked me ‘where you going to live, because you’re not coming here.’ I guess that woke me up.’’
Ward talked with his mother every day during the second semester, began to work harder in the classroom and got his grades up to a 2.7 GPA.
“I made sacrifices. I stopped partying so much. I focused on what I was supposed to focus on, and I did all right,’’ he said. “Once I got my grades, it showed me I could do it. And then by sophomore year, I knew it would be tougher, but I also knew what to expect.’’
That’s what TAP does, through Ward’s experiences it lets the high school student know what to expect when he or she gets to college.
“If you think about it when you’re in high school almost everything you do is in a 25 miles radius,’’ Ward said. “You go to school, you go home. You go to the mall; you go to a friend’s house; you go to the game. You’re never going too far. Now, you’re in college and you’re hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles away. That’s just one of the tough adjustments for a 17, or 18 year old to make.’’
Ward began thinking about putting together an instructional tool for high school students when he was still playing. He thought about it more when he became an assistant coach at Georgia State, under his old college coach, Bill Curry.
“I saw it even more when I was coaching,’’ he said. “You know there are so many camps for kids to get ready for the game. But I felt there was a need for something to get them ready for everything off the field.’’
Piece by piece Ward put together his thoughts from when he played, added some from when he coached and just about a year ago started TAP.
“It’s going well,’’ he said. “It helps kids deal with everything from time management, to independence, to dealing with the peer pressure of drugs and alcohol and sex, there’s a lot thrown at a young man that he’s not ready for a lot of the time.’’
What helps is that everything Ward tells his students are things he experienced. It’s not coming out a book; it’s real life from a man who overcame the adjustments and played in the NFL.
“That’s vital,’’ he said. “My experiences let them know that if it happened to me, it can happen to them.’’
Not all of them are going to have the same success, it’s not easy to make it to the top, but you can still achieve success through TAP.
“Every kid thinks he can make the NFL, or the NBA. I tell them the percentages and let them know how tough it really is,’’ Ward said. “I stress to them that the No. 1 goal is to get your degree. Yes, the NFL is a goal, and I made it there, but the first thing is to get a degree.
“And I tell them don’t base your college choice on the football team or the coach, base it on what your major is going to be. Coaches come and go, you need to make sure you’re on the right track.’’
Ward and TAP can get you there.
For more information on TAP visit the website at www.TAPsports.org.