Staff Blog
Jason Avant is Changing the World
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Annette Jean-Hall has a column today looking at Eagles’ wide reciver Jason Avant and his somewhat unlikely rise to prominence. It has a boilerplate message – troubled youth finds football than religion and finds his way – and a do-good takeaway – the column is essentially a plug for the Big Brothers program – but while it isn’t terribly well written it does manage to come off neither preachy nor boring.
Money quote:
In sixth grade, he joined a gang and sold drugs. By seventh grade, he also was drinking and smoking.
The way his life was going, chances are he’d still be selling on the mean streets of Chicago. Or locked up. Or, worse, dead.
Instead, Avant, 25, is a college graduate and husband to Rashida. Together, they are raising Avant’s 15-year-old cousin, Rushon Avant, who lives with them in South Jersey.
“He grew up in the same area as I did, so I’m trying to show him,” he says.
Which is Avant’s way of returning the blessings God gave him.
And what led him to become active in the Big Brothers Eagles Bigs campaign, an initiative between Big Brothers and the Eagles to recruit more male mentors for young boys.
Check it out.
