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As a safety in the NFL, I was known as one of the hardest hitters in the game.  Unfortunately, I needed to learn to be tough to survive my upbringing in one of the roughest parts of Indianapolis at 30^th and Keystone. In fact, it’s near the area featured in the “Housing Innovations” section of this magazine.

During one of my little league football games, a man ran straight through our playing field as he was being shot at.  We dropped the ball and ran full speed ahead hoping we weren’t going to get hit by the bullet.  I was 8 years old at the time and realized that I needed to get out of there.

My mom had the idea that I should get a mentor.  I knew that I needed help, but I never had an adult male in my life. Moreover, I was afraid to open up my life to one.  Undeterred, my mom contacted the Indianapolis chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters and I got my “Big” named T.J.

Looking back at it now, I realize that this was the defining moment of my life.  Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring and sports were the two things that kept me out of trouble.  And trouble was all around me.  All the other kids were telling me that I would never be anything and that I’d never get out of the neighborhood. “Nobody comes out of here,” they said; “unless you’re dead or you’re headed to prison.”

T.J. told me different things. He said that I could be anything I wanted in life as long as I was willing to work hard enough and believe in myself. I had family members saying the same thing, but it was different coming from a man.  I began to believe in myself because he believed in me.

Another thing that my Big Brother always said was, “Your mind can take you farther than anything else in life.”  He said that you can be a star in high school, college and maybe even the NFL, but one day that will be taken from you. No one could ever take my ability to think and so he pushed me really hard in school.  He helped me get into an elite private school in Indianapolis called Cathedral and then into college at Ball State.

I’ve been involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters myself now for 30 years.  My story began with a dream but that dream would never have come true if a “Big” had not used his life to impact mine at age 8.  Now I work with my old ballclub, the Tennessee Titans, the largest black church in Nashville and other programs to promote mentoring so that millions of other kids will get the help they need.

I am honored to serve on the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee.  We are a national leader in placing children of prisoners with a mentor.  Two million children in America have at least one incarcerated parent in prison and these kids are seven times more likely to follow the same path themselves. Unless, of course, a mentor steps into their lives to break the cycle of crime and violence.

Mentoring is personal for me because I lived it. One of the amazing gifts of mentoring is that the mentor gets as much benefit as the kids do.  So you could say that I’m still living it and I hope many more will join me in saving America’s youth.

Essay adapted from remarks delivered at White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives “Compassion in Action” roundtable; January 23, 2008