Right after the 49ers football season ends, Nnamdi Asomugha starts his full-time offseason volunteer job - college tour guide.
By spring, hundreds of applicants to ACTS (Asomugha College Tour for Scholars) will be winnowed to 20 who win a free trip to a specified region of the country. He only takes high school sophomores. That way when they find their dream school, there is still time to plan for gaining admission and getting through. ACTS sponsors them the whole way, which includes service projects and scholarships.
"We build a community of students where we are helping them get into college, with financial aid," says Asomugha (usually pronounced "Awesome-wa"), who started the program and supports it with a level of involvement that extends way beyond writing a check. He is hands on, as in hands on the wheel of a van full of teenagers, driving from Oakland to Los Angeles or wherever.
The sophomore year is symbolic to Asomugha because he was a sophomore at UC Berkeley when philanthropy was pounded onto his shoulder pads by a coach. He was picked to represent the Cal football team in a community program called "Touchdown for Kids," to raise money for children with disabilities.
He stayed with it all the way through graduation, and when he was drafted in the first round by the Oakland Raiders in 2003, he didn't want the kids to think he would "big-league" them. So he gave more time than before.
"When I got to the NFL, it was just a bug that I caught," he says, while giving his time yet again to sit and talk about his philanthropy after a long practice at 49ers headquarters.
"I would go down to youth centers in Oakland and take boys fishing or take a group bowling or to the movies."
By 2006 he was an All-Pro, and had formalized the Asomugha Foundation and ACTS. Since then he has taken kids on tours of colleges in Atlanta, Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Chicago, and both the Bay Area and Southern California.
The trips go beyond the campuses. The guide has gotten his charges into the White House bowling alley, backstage at an Alicia Keys concert and courtside during a Chicago Bulls pregame shoot-
around.
"One of our students had never been out of California," he says. "She went on our Washington trip and fell in love with Georgetown (University). We helped her with the application process, and she ended up getting in."
That student is one of 130, from both private and public schools, who have participated in the program, which is supplemented by grants and donations ( www.asomughafoundation.org). Headquarters are in Los Angeles, his hometown. The kids come from there and Oakland, where he played eight seasons, and Philadelphia, where he played the last two seasons. Wherever he signs to play, poor kids from that area immediately stand a better chance.
"Some are athletes, but I'm not looking for athletes," he says. "I'm just looking for students that are in some really challenging circumstances, students that are in underserved communities, students that have stories that would blow your mind and they've been able to overcome hardships and still have a 3.5 GPA and above."
At 32, Asomugha looks too young and unscarred to be an 11-year veteran and three-time Pro Bowl starter. When he leads a college tour, he gets mistaken for a sophomore.
"Oh, yeah, it happens," he says. "I put the backpack on and blend in very well."
Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @samwhitingsf
No comments:
Post a Comment