MEQUITE – Jason Witten knows a little something about Boys & Girls Clubs. The Dallas Cowboys tight end frequented them as a youth. With his success on the football field, Witten has been given the opportunity to give back to those clubs, and he did so again recently.
If you're unaware of Witten's story, the eight-time Pro Bowler grew up with an abusive father. To escape, his mother and his two brothers moved to Elizabethton, Tenn. to live with her father when Witten was 11.
Going to the local Boys & Girls Clubs helped Witten get through that difficult time in his life.
"It was a challenging childhood for me and that was a place where it seemed like you go in those doors and there were people that truly cared about me," Witten said Friday. "There were programs in place to kind of encourage me that tomorrow was going to be a better day. This is a place that provides hope and inspiration for them."
Witten was speaking before a ribbon-cutting ceremony that marked the renovation and development of a learning center at a Boys & Girls Club of Greater Dallas.
Since being drafted by the Cowboys in 2003, Witten has turned his negative childhood experiences into positive experiences for others by becoming one of the most charitable players in the NFL. His work off the field, especially through his SCORE Foundation, which aids victims of domestic violence, led to Witten winning the NFL's Walter Payton Man of the Year award in February.
The SCORE Foundation teamed with Albertsons to help fund the renovations to the center in Mesquite, Witten's second learning center in the greater Dallas area.
"I play football but one day football is going to be over for me," Witten told the group of kids sitting in front of him. "I was fortunate to be part of a class at Tennessee that I got to leave school early to go to the NFL. But since then, I've gone back to school to get my degree. And the reason for that is I learned early on in the Boys & Girls Club that I would need that. So I encourage you guys to do the same thing."
Along with cutting the ribbon, Witten talked with the kids, signed a few autographs and said he would come back at a later date to hang out and maybe play basketball with them.
"You feel good about encouraging them to chase their dreams," Witten said. "That's simply it. There's not any hidden agenda to what this is all about, other than to try to provide something for them, to give them a better opportunity."
Follow Jon Machota on Twitter: @jonmachota
