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Ask the kids
By GEOFF HOBSON
May 16, 2008 
 Every spring, Marvin Lewis always seems to find them in the most unlikely of places. Like an Easter egg plucked from a tree or a starter yanked from the seventh round, the Bengals head coach always seems to find the kids that bring the best Cincinnati has to offer. And that means bringing out the best in Lewis and his sprawling charitable foundation that has become a Tri-State institution during six brief years. And, oh, the region's best celebrity golf tournament outside of George Clooney pausing on a putting green. Sunday's guest list at Shaker Run looks like the green room of an ESPN-NFL Network party that got out of hand. If you want to know why Lewis does it, why he immerses himself in what has become one of the region's most influential organizations at a total of $2.5 million, talk to the kids about the Marvin Lewis Community Fund. "It was awesome. He didn't just talk, he talked back to me," says New Miami High School's Christina Haning. "I was following him even before he got to Cincinnati," says Princeton High School's Jaymon Ballew. "It was crazy. I was nervous and I was trying not to smile. He asked me about how I kept my discipline in studying. ... It ended up like I was just chilling out with him." Lewis and wife Peggy go through their applications and read the essays to decide which ones he'll talk to. Then he sits down with them and like he did with Keith Rivers before the draft and Antwan Odom in free agency, Lewis interviews them before deciding who gets one of the foundation's 13 college scholarships of $20,000. Or $5,000 for each of their four years. Let the kids tell you why they need it.
"I am now forced to be fully independent," she wrote in her essay. "I have always been responsible, but my mother always found a way to take care of me financially. She told me if I stayed involved in all my school activities and kept my grades up, I wouldn't have to work until the summer before college. "Along with adjusting to my new lifestyle I have managed to obtain a 4.45 GPA and I am currently first in my class. I have also managed to keep my responsibilities of President of both National and Spanish Honor societies, Vice President of my class, a leader in my school's drug free group, and the leader of my school's bible study." At 5-9, 165 pounds with two parents working the day shift, Ballew was never the biggest guy or the richest kid with all the options. But as captain and point guard of his tragedy-struck basketball team, he led it to a district title while keeping up his grades well over a 4.0 GPA and high enough to interest Columbia University in an International Baccalaureate program that demands only Advanced Placement and Honor courses. "With two parents that combine to make less than $100,000 and struggle monthly in the midst of raising four children, this would almost be like finding a winning lottery ticket," Ballew wrote in his essay. "However, it differs in a large way as the parents are finally seeing the work ethic and character that they instilled in their children pay off. "I see this scholarship as far more than an asset to my education. I believe that this scholarship is a great honor that I could be very fortunate to have bestowed upon me. Knowing what Marvin Lewis represents, what he has achieved as a successful coach, a trailblazing African-American coach, and a strong presence in the community serve as reasons for me to believe that this is an extremely prestigious award." Which just goes to show the kids are always watching and listening. And not only that. They get it. And it's why Lewis goes above and beyond coaching. It's why he does the events and the handshakes and the inane conversations and the extra hours layered on top of the wackiness of the NFL and sometimes gets goofy in doing some auctioneering of his own.
"Come on," he'll say, trying to coax some wallet out of a suit with some sort of ticket package or signed jersey. "It's for the kids." It's why he started with four scholarships, went to eight, and now has 13. Kids like Ballew. "I'm a big football fan. I was a teenager when the Ravens won the Super Bowl," he says of the team that featured Lewis as defensive coordinator. "Yeah, I noticed that he was (black). He was a coach. It wasn't like he was a player and he could just wake up and go out there and play. He was a coach and he had to work his way up. And that's not easy, especially before the Rooney Rule." Maybe the fact that Ballew is 18 and knows all about the NFL's rule requiring teams to interview at least one minority candidate for a head coaching job isn't as surprising as knowing he was nervous before interviewing with Lewis. "He told me didn't want me in there when he went in to talk to (Lewis) because I'd make him nervous," says his mother, Lori Ballew, and she didn't even tell him until they were in the car driving to the appointment. Lori very nearly became the first in the family to get a college degree a generation ago when she graduated from Lockland High School and went to Lee University in Cleveland, Tenn. But after four years, she ended up about a semester short and the money just didn't hold out. "If it was expensive then," she says, "you know what it is now. I call Jaymon low maintenance of the four kids. He's always been focused and had goals to succeed. I look back and I wish we could have put away more for him." Yet Lori and her husband have done what they're supposed to do. She works as a mail handler for the U.S. Postal Service downtown. His father is a dock worker for Tote's Isotoner in Westchester. Solid. But, like many fighting the good fight, not quite enough, either. Lori shook her head when they got the letters back and the aid has just never come close to the need. That may be changing now. Jaymon thought he was headed to the University of Tennessee, but Columbia now seems interested enough to pay close to everything. The Lewis Scholarship would put it over the top for the three kids coming in behind him. "Both my parents were around at night. They worked days; I think that helped me," Jaymon Ballew says. "You know how when you get home from school and kids want to go out and play? My dad would tell me I couldn't go out until I sat down at the table in the living room or dining room with the books." And, Lori Ballew says, "No video games until the weekend." It's like what he said about the Chris Henry jersey. His family, brothers and sisters included, were shocked when Jaymon said he wanted a Henry jersey last Christmas. Here was Ballew, a starting wide receiver on the Princeton playoff team but the anti-Henry guy as a solid citizen, wanting the jersey of the team's most troubled player that got cut a few weeks ago after another off-field incident. "I told them I thought he was going to turn it around," Jaymon says. "But I just like the way he plays on the field. I don't look at athletes as role models. I look at people like my parents for those things." Josh Andrews can be thankful for that. At 25, he suddenly became the Princeton varsity basketball coach when Bill Brewer died of a heart attack at age 42 the morning after cuts in early November. In the quick and relentless Ballew, Andrews knew he had one of the best defenders in Cincinnati and an unvarnished, unselfish player that would get the right people the ball. But he knew he needed more than that from him. "We only had three seniors and our team definitely looked to him for leadership," Andrews says. "Especially from kids who maybe weren't as disciplined or came from the same background. He was a guy they responded to. Everything you could want in a senior captain." Even in prep basketball, defense, taking care of the ball, and senior leadership go a long way. Try 18-6, a share of the Greater Miami Conference title and the district win. But if you ask Ballew, his biggest thrill playing sports is helping the once proud Vikings football program get back to the postseason. But even though he admires Lewis, he's not going into his field. There are role models and then there is pre-med. Lewis requires that the scholarship winners get a varsity sports letter at some point in their careers, but it's not the defining trait. "I think he liked the fact that I was well-rounded," Ballew says. "He seemed to like I was involved in a lot of things." Ballew did it with two parents in a big school with a graduating class of 400-plus. Haning did it in a small town with one parent and she doesn't have her anymore; the lady she calls her best friend, the lady that died in her sleep back in February. Christina is convinced it was the result of the stress of trying to cope with family problems her mother tried her best to shield from her daughter. "My mother was the most caring person you would have met," Haning wrote in her essay, and now she recalls how her mother told her not to worry about working. Tammy, an LPN at a nursing home, told her to take care of school, she would take care of the rest, and it would all work out. "She was like that with her patients," Christina says. "Very caring. She got to know them." It turns out Tammy was right. It's working out, but not the way she planned. A week after her mother's funeral, Christina went out and got a job at Panera Bread at 20 hours a week. She's fiercely proud that she has yet to take money from anyone in paying for that prom dress, three field trips in the last week, and, like she wrote in the essay, "many other costs that the average senior gets assistance in paying for from their parents." She plans to move in with her grandparents during the summer, but it's all very temporary. "She's basically on her own now," says Kristen Yancey, her school counselor. "She's independent. She's going to be responsible for everything. We're still going through a grieving process, but she has held up so well. She hasn't had a normal support group while she's been in school, but that's where her support has always been." New Miami is a small, tight community. The graduating class of 43 has known each other since grade school. She's been best friends with her boyfriend since seventh grade, long before they started going out. Ever her mother's daughter, Christina's plan is to be a physical therapist for children. Her speech at graduation is going to be one of the best tickets in town. "Everything she writes is from the heart," Yancey says. "Whenever you read something Christina writes, you know it's straight from her. She's just not the type of person who is going to copy down what someone else said about something." Haning played volleyball and maybe isn't in to the pro sports scene like Ballew. But she knew about Lewis before her meeting. "You know he wants his players to have good character, to be good people and to do things for the community," Haning says. "He was nice. And he listened to what I was saying." How much does the $5,000 a year mean? Everything. She had everything covered at Miami but books and board, so the scholarship is the gamebreaker. The prom dress, by the way, is pink. "A Cinderella dress," is how Haning puts it. Of course. Which is why Lewis does it. |
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