Buckeyes Tackle Illiteracy – Ohio State Buckeyes
7/5/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
Former Ohio State Football Student-Athletes Establish 2nd & 7 Foundation to Encourage Reading Among Central Ohio Youth
by Emily Meyer
Expectations are high for student-athletes at The Ohio State University. Dedication to ones sport, studies and overall involvement with the Columbus community are all part of being a Buckeye. By donning the Scarlet and Gray, OSU student-athletes become role models for children across Ohio and the nation. During their time as Buckeyes, former football players Ryan Miller (1993-96), Mike Vrabel (1993-96) and Luke Fickell (1993-96) embraced their roles as well-known community members by finding balance and passion in the work they did on the field, in the classroom and in the community.
While at Ohio State, Miller, Vrabel and Fickell were prominent forces both within and beyond the boundaries of Ohio Stadium. As student-athletes, they allocated time to set down their helmets and textbooks to volunteer with Ohio’s Right to Read Week program. After their first time reading to a classroom of second graders, the three were amazed by their impact on the children.
Graduation from the university came and passed and the trio still talked about the positive experience they had working with the national reading program and in 2000, three years after Miller, Vrabel and Fickell graduated, the former student-athletes decided to take action and begin their own project to help promote literacy in Columbus.
“At the time, we didn’t really know what we were doing,” Miller said. “We just knew we wanted to donate books to Columbus schools and read to second graders because that age group seemed to benefit the most.”
After hitting the drawing board, the three crafted a plan to hold a football camp and use the revenue to buy books for Columbus’ children. At their first camp, Miller, Vrabel and Fickell coached 55 children in the sport that brought them together at Ohio State and generated enough money to supply seven schools with new books. From the success of the football camp, the 2nd & 7 Foundation was built with the goal of supplying books to second graders at seven local elementary schools.
As the three continue to expand the reach of their literacy program, they all maintain fulltime jobs. Since graduating from Ohio State, Miller worked as a sports anchor form WBNS 10TV in Columbus and now owns his own marketing firm, m2 marketing, LLC. Vrabel plays for the New England Patriots in the National Football League where he has collected Super Bowl rings in 2002, ’04 and ’05 and Fickell, a Westerville, Ohio, native, works at his alma mater as the Buckeye linebacker coach.
This June, Miller, Vrabel and Fickell held their eighth training camp with more than 500 children signed up for the yearly event. With the growth of the foundation, the former Buckeyes have been able to distribute more books to a growing number of schools in the Columbus area.
The 2nd & 7 Foundation has come full circle and returned to its roots with a partnership with the Ohio State Department of Athletics.
“Athletic Director Gene Smith made it a departmental initiative and helped coordinate current student-athletes to take part in the program,” Miller said. “Last year, 14 teams and nearly 100 student-athletes from Ohio State visited 43 schools and gave out more than 2,500 books.
“One of our goals at the 2nd & 7 Foundation is to continue to develop a relationship with OSU so each student-athlete will be able to share the experience we had in school through The Right to Read Week’ because we firmly believe the student-athletes benefit just as much as the children.”
And there’s no stopping the vision of the former student-athletes as the years roll on. Following the Ohio State motto Do Something Great,’ Miller, Vrabel and Fickell plan to write a children’s book and distribute a copy to every second grader enrolled in the 2008 academic year. Ohio State head football coach Jim Tressel is more than proud of his former athletes’ contribution to society.
“Paying Forward,’ as Coach Woody Hayes would say, is a fundamental belief of every Ohio State Buckeye, both past and present,” Tressel said. “We are proud to support the 2nd & 7 Foundation in the effort to make a difference with young people in our community because literacy is power for the future of our Central Ohio youngsters.”
As leaders in the Buckeye community, the trio has stepped up to the tasks of doing something great for the children of Columbus. By learning to balance the life of an athlete, student and community ambassador at Ohio State, Miller, Vrabel and Fickell have turn an idea into a reality with the 2nd & 7 Foundation. In doing so, they have made a vast impact on the lives of Columbus youths and current OSU student-athletes.
