BEYOND THE GRIDIRON

BEYOND THE GRIDIRON 

Two former athletes find that sometimes the most important victories happen off the field.

by Kayla Montgomery Alabama Alumni Magazine...

As the game clock crept under one minute remaining in

the final quarter of the 2009 BCS National Championship against Texas, then-Alabama defensive back and special teams captain Chris Rogers charged down the sideline with a cooler full of Gatorade, preparing to give coach Nick Saban the ceremonial postgame shower of champions. As the final seconds passed, and success became certain, Rogers drenched Saban in a sea of red, accidentally hitting his coach in the head with the large orange container in the process.

For a time on that January evening, Alabama’s 13th national championship seemed a bit uncertain, much like Rogers’ future before he set his sights on playing college football. As he prepared to enter the ninth grade, he still struggled with reading, he said, but with guidance, he was able to change the trajectory of his life and attend The University of Alabama on a football scholarship. Years later, Rogers’ mishap with the Gatorade may have become his Alabama football legacy, but he has also created a different legacy in his community by creating the athlete- based service organization Together Assisting People Inc. or TAP.

Former 1985–1987 linebacker Darryl Fuhrman has also taken his experiences from the gridiron to his community. Following the Tuscaloosa tornado in 2011, Fuhrman founded Lettermen of the Iron Bowl to aid in relief efforts. Since its inception, the group of former college football players has grown to Lettermen of the USA, becoming an organization that regularly honors veterans nationwide, further demonstrating the power of the sport to extend beyond the field and into a means of public service.

Giving a Chance

Rogers completed his bachelor’s degree in consumer sciences in 2009 and continued into graduate school. Before his graduation in 2010 with a master’s in hospitality management, a class assignment sparked the program that has now grown into a prominent organization, and that landed Rogers in Mobile Bay magazine’s 40 Under Forty. “We were supposed to think of a business plan, and I couldn’t think of a business, but I started thinking of all the things we lack as athletes,” Rogers said of the assignment. “A lot of us struggle with soft skills—how to interview in front of cameras, financial literacy, all of these issues that athletes need that nobody really teaches us. I wanted to create a program off of that.” He knew immediately that he wanted to bring the project to fruition beyond the walls of a classroom. In 2010, TAP was officially established, and since then, Rogers said, it has grown into one of the state’s most successful programs for preparing school-aged athletes for a life beyond athletics.

The main mission of TAP is exposure, Rogers said. Through symposiums and community outreach events, he aims to teach children of all ages that there is more to life than sports and that the notion of success extends off the field and into real life as well. “I use athletics to get them drawn in, but once we get them there, we have executives from all over the state of Alabama come in and talk to these guys,” he explained. “We teach them that success may not be going to the NFL. Success may be working at a Fortune 500 company, starting your own company or giving back and becoming a community servant. Success is finding something you’re passionate about.”

Through this exposure, Rogers hopes that the children he works with will realize that there are immense opportunities in the real world, something he did not understand at a young age. Faced with reading difficulties that were not well addressed because family moves had him switching schools often, Rogers recalled being told that he had no chance to become successful, until his mentor, Rich Humber, introduced him to the idea of attending college on an athletic scholarship. Humber, an educator and college placement advisor since 1999, runs a nonprofit organization that provides off-season development for athletes and also assists students and families through the college search process. “Once I realized I had a chance, I started caring,” Rogers said. “When we get these kids to start caring about something, they find their passions. It will make them want to learn how to read. It will make them want to do what they’ve got to do.”

A United Front

On April 27, 2011, Fuhrman, who earned a UA bachelor’s degree in history in 1989, was coaching a high- school football practice in Atlanta when he received a text that would ultimately set the creation of Lettermen of the USA into motion. “I get a text that basically there was a tornado on the ground in Tuscaloosa, and it was leaving a debris field all the way to Birmingham,” he said. “I couldn’t possibly imagine that it was as devastating as the text said it was until I got home that night from football practice and realized the news out of Tuscaloosa was grim.”

Knowing the property damage his brother, a Tuscaloosa resident, faced, and after learning that a fellow member of the A-Club (the UA athletics alumni society) lost his daughter in the storms, Fuhrman made a trip to Tuscaloosa to get involved with the relief effort. “It was all hands on deck,” he said. After returning home, Fuhrman said he and other Alabama, Auburn and UAB athletes discussed various ways to raise money for tornado relief and settled on a flag football game. The HeartinDixie Foundation flag football game between Alabama and Auburn football alumni took place in August 2011, and the event raised $130,000 for recovery efforts. Following the game, in order to continue their public service, former Alabama and Auburn football players formed the Lettermen of the Iron Bowl to serve as a disaster relief group.

Ultimately, it shifted into a social impact organization and began taking on projects around the state. In 2012, it raised money for the Bobby Humphrey Run for Recovery, worked with Toomers for Tuscaloosa to collect supplies following Hurricane Sandy, and forged an alliance with The Firehouse Shelter, a metro-Birmingham-based urban mission that provides a continuum of services for the homeless. Then, it gave away its first autographed football to a local veteran, a practice that would become a hallmark of the group.

While the first football was procured within state lines for Army specialist and Auburn fan Josh Wetzel, who lost his legs in Afghanistan after stepping on a roadside bomb, the second ball, given to Huntsville’s Corey Garmon, forced the organization to expand its borders across the Southeast. “We found out on Tuesday night that he was coming to Huntsville,” Fuhrman said. “And oh, by the way, he’s not an Alabama or Auburn fan wounded warrior—he’s a Florida fan.” Garmon, an Army cavalry scout, was on patrol in Afghanistan when he and his unit encountered an improvised explosive device, resulting in the loss of his legs and limited use of his left hand, among other injuries.

Furhman reached out to contacts in South Alabama and Florida in pursuit of the necessary football but was unsure that such a swift turnaround could be arranged. “I made a little prayer that night before I went to bed like the one said in the Iron Bowl of 1985 right before Van Tiffin kicked the famous winning field goal,” Fuhrman explained. “‘Lord, if you’ve just got one more in you tonight...,’ I made that same prayer, and by 6:30 Wednesday night I had two footballs coming, and we presented them on a Friday morning in Huntsville, Alabama.”

Since then, the group has again expanded its borders, now called Lettermen of the USA. In addition to participating in local causes, the service organization has given 116 footballs and one basketball signed by coaches and players to soldiers injured during their military service. Despite the numbers, Fuhrman said, each ball given is equally as important as the first. “Each one is different,” he explained. “Each one is special, each one has a story—it’s all about service to others.”

The sport of football can often be a divisive thing, pitting team against team, colors against colors, one fan base against another. Beyond the field, though, Fuhrman said the sport can prove to be a uniting force when athletes and fans cross the lines to work together for a worthy cause. “Bigger things can happen,” he said. “We have the opportunity to be on the same team.”

www.lotusa.org

?