The Touchdown Project is a Montreal-based initiative to help at-risk youth make positive changes in their life, using football as platform.
And now the program is expanding to Jamaica.
“We’re ecstatic to have inner-city kids from Jamaica learn about American football,” Paul Scott, from Innavage Consulting said. “To pursue their dreams to first get a degree and hopefully then after, if they want to, on to the NFL.”
Innavage is a National Collegiate Athetlic Association (NCAA)-certified company but Scott describes it as something more akin to a ministry.
“We believe in helping student-athletes use football and academics to get NCAA scholarships,” he said.
While some players do end up playing for the Canadian Football League, Scott, explained that most kids grow up dreaming of playing in the NFL.
Innavage recruit and Touchdown Project ambassador, Justin Senior, knows a thing or two about NFL dreams.
Senior is currently a top prospect for the 2017 NFL draft pick. The offensive lineman won the Kent Hull Trophy, awarded to the top offensive lineman in the state of Mississippi.
While at Mississippi State University, Senior, now 22-years-old, was a three-year starter playing with the likes of Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback, Dak Prescott.
The NFL draft is drawing near and on Jan. 21, Senior will be playing in the East-West Shrine Game — a game attended by NFL scouts, coaches and GMs.
Senior said he’s not nervous about the draft, rather he seems grateful for the opportunity.
“I know the work I’m going to have to put in to make sure that any team I end up on I’m able to perform,” he said.”I’m excited. I’m glad to be in this position where I get to just work on one thing — focus in on football and just be able to live that life.”
“It feels like a dream come true really. It’s something you always dream of happening but you never believe it will happen,” Senior said.
Senior got his start in football as a teen.
“I grew up playing soccer,” he said. “But football was my favourite sport.”
“It’s the only sport I really watched so when I started playing seriously it felt right.”
Senior who has been an ambassador for for the Touchdown Project throughout his collegiate career, said education is something he strongly believes in.
“Education is everything,” he said. “Football is an opportunity.”
Whether or not he makes the NFL, education is something he says he will continue advocating for.
Comments