49ers' Braylon Edwards Helps 79 Students Afford College
In 2005, rookie Braylon Edwards made a pledge to help 100 eighth graders pay for college through his Advance 100 program. The requirement was they had to graduate high school with a GPA of 2.5 or higher with 15 hours of community service under their belts.
Yahoo! Sports reports six years later, 79 students have met the criteria and are in their freshman year of college. Ironically, Edwards recently signed a one-year deal for a base salary of $1 million. With 79 students at $10,000 a pop, his salary’s looking a little snug. Not backing down from the financial obligation, Edwards says, "I'm supposed to give people a chance like I was given a chance."
The Michigan native should also be proud that some of the students are in top-tier universities like Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Cornell. One recipient, who’s enrolled at Bowling Green, tells ESPN, "Without this scholarship, I probably wouldn't be here." Another from Kent says, “This scholarship really changed my life.”
While Edwards admits the rate of success is higher than he imagined, and one can say he’s playing for free this year, he says, “Sometimes it’s not about the money, it’s about doing what’s right.”
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