About me
Being born the youngest of 5 to a struggling household brought many complications. After spending over ten years in the foster care system and experiencing physical, mental, and emotional abuse, I was as good a bet as any to be just another youth chewed up and spat out by the foster system. And it would have been that way if it weren't for my sophomore year of high school.
In March of 2012, my dad was arrested, and I was faced with a decision: go back into foster care or drop out of school, run away, and never be seen again.
Luckily, there was another option that I had never considered. My high school coach and his family invited me to live with them. Truthfully, I didn't want to go. Against my wishes, I moved into their home. One year later, I had scholarship offers to just about anywhere I could've wanted to go. I signed to play at the University of Minnesota, graduated in 3 years with a degree in communications, and started my grad degree while playing football and excelling on the field.Following a year of grad school, I signed an NFL contract with the Cincinnati Bengals. A year later, I married my beautiful wife. A year after that, we welcomed our first daughter into the world.
I can now reflect and know that back in March 2012, my life was completely changed for the better. And it wasn't because I got a scholarship or stability or that I wasn't allowed to drop out of school. Sure, all those things were important.
But my life changed that day because I genuinely and deeply experienced belonging. And over the course of the following year, I would begin to accept belonging as something I deserved, for the first time in my life. That acceptance changed how I viewed myself, and THAT changed my life.
I left the NFL and began working with youth from similar backgrounds to mine, assisting them in their pursuit of belonging. Through research and lived experience, I now know that adults are THE most influential champions of belonging in the lives of youth, especially those with adverse backgrounds. Let's work together to erase the belonging gap so we can see more lives changed for the better.