Feature Story

The Biggest Game of All
Through All Sports Community Service, Tyrone Keys helps area athletes level the playing field in the game of life.
By Jay Winchester

Albert Einstein once observed the condition of the world around him and remarked, “It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.” Tyrone Keys, the Founder and Director of All Sports Community Service, a 501(3)c organization providing opportunities for student/athletes to attain personal enrichment through higher education, may not be aware of Einstein’s words. Nevertheless, he has certainly lived them out in his life.

As a young man playing football at Calloway High School in Jackson, Mississippi, Keys really had no clue what his future would hold. Fortunately, his coach, Odell Jenkins, saw something in the young player- something beyond his size and talent- that convinced him Keys was worth an investment of his time and attention. Coach Jenkins took young Keys under his wing, building positive foundational elements such as character and commitment in the young man’s life. “Up until that time, I really never had anybody to take a special interest in me,” Keys says, his voice a deep and mellow baritone. “What I mean by ‘special interest’ is, he was always telling me, ‘If you do this and this, I guarantee you, the sky is the limit. You can play at college, because I coached all these other guys and they’ve gone off to college. You have this kind of potential but you’ve got to work to your potential.’ He was tough on me.”

Working to his potential paid off. Eventually, Coach Jenkins helped Keys find his way to Mississippi State, where the 6’7”, 260-pound defensive end became a three-time All-SEC selection and a fifth-round pick of the NFL’s New York Jets in 1981. Over the course of seven seasons, Keys played with the San Diego Chargers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but the highlight of his professional career was a stint with the Chicago Bears that culminated with a Super Bowl championship in the team’s 46-10 win over the New England Patriots.

Such an accomplishment is sufficient enough for many athletes that, when their careers are over, they move away from the game and are never heard from again. Others use it as a springboard to continued financial opportunity through endorsements and memorabilia, or careers in broadcasting or coaching. Many become entrepreneurs and business owners. However, a select few choose to use the platform an NFL career provides to do good for others, to give back some of what has been given to them. Keys is that type of former NFL player.

Giving back is something Keys has wanted to do for a long time. In college, where he was spending half of his time on the practice field, he wrote a paper about someday being able to help young people, either in a career in counseling or coaching. However, it was the tragic ending of a young man’s life that set Keys upon the path that would ultimately lead to All Sports. In 1989, Leto High running back Albert Perry had heard about Keys, recently retired from the NFL and working as an advisor and coach at Tampa Catholic. He’d heard stories about Keys’ desire to help athletes from Tampa’s high-risk neighborhoods find a way to go to college and earn an education that would provide a way out. Keys agreed to work with Perry, helping put together a highlight reel and preparing him for admissions testing. The end result of their work together was a scholarship to Texas Southern University.

Weeks later, after schools were in session, Keys encountered Perry and asked him why he wasn’t at college. The young man informed Keys that he hadn’t had a way to get there, adding that if he didn’t get out of his neighborhood soon, he would “…end up dead or in trouble.” Those proved to be prophetic words. Just a few days later, Keys heard on the evening news that Perry had been shot to death. It was sobering news for the former pro player.

Determined to make a difference, he approached Tampa Dodge dealership owner Jerry Ulm and presented his idea for a program that would make sure kids with athletic ability, but little opportunity, could find a way to get scholarships for college without needing any money to come out of their families’ pockets. Ulm agreed to help, and All Sports Community Service was born. Unfortunately, after helping the program’s first three enrollees, Ulm passed away. To this Day, Keys and All Sports maintain strong ties with the Ulm family.

Although Perry’s short life was heartrending, All Sports has helped write countless happy endings to the lives of young athletes. Since its founding in 1993, All Sports Community Service has helped some 600 students benefit from the well over $20 million ticketed for their college educations. What All Sports does is best portrayed by a series of pictures that hang vertically in the conference room at the organization’s headquarters. The first picture shows a young Keys flanked by his mother and father as he signs his letter of intent with Mississippi in 1975. Coach Jenkins, Keys’ mentor, stands in the background. Beneath that picture is one from 1995 showing Keys sitting with Nate Peoples, a young man Tyrone mentored, eventually helping him get a scholarship to Mississippi State. Beneath that are two pictures of Peoples with young men he is mentoring through the process to help them on their way to college. It is a perpetual process of giving back what has been given, a mission summed up best by All Sport’s motto: “A selfless journey, where coming back to give back is a way of life.”

As one might expect, the programs run by All Sports abound with football terminology. When a youngster enters the program, he or she (yes, they also assist young women, as well as some non-athletes) enters what’s called pre-season. “The first thing we do is have every student write down their dreams, goals and aspirations for their life,” says Keys. “We tell them, we believe in you stepping away, but you need to be doing something toward this. You can do something toward this or you can do something against this.” Just as in the NFL, not everyone makes it out of pre-season…but most do.

The rest of the program is run like an NFL game: Students start off in the first quarter, and progress all the way through to the fourth quarter. Along the way, the “community service” portion of the organization’s name comes into play in a big way, something not every student athlete understands at first. “Here, if you contribute, it’s going to come back to you,” says Keys. “If you sow, you’re going to reap.” This “four quarters” approach is reinforced by large diagrams hanging on the walls that trace the progress of All Sports alumni, student athletes and non-athletes who walked in its doors, and walked out into college and then into life.

Key’s former Chargers teammate, Erick “Pink” Floyd (he acquired the nickname because it resonated with devotees of the British rock band), works with him at All Sports. The plan is for Pink to take over the Tampa office while Tyrone tries to get All Sports programs up and running in other cities. Pink’s vision for All Sports is to maintain the caring attitude started by Keys. “There are a lot of organizations – non-profit and for profit – that do in essence some of the things that we try to do,” he says. “ When they work with kids, they may charge them thousands of dollars to do essentially what we do. The only thing the kids have to do for us is community service hours – going back to giving back to the community. We do care about the kids because once we get them to college, we don’t just dump them in school and say, ‘Find your way home.’ They call at all times and we answer the phone at all times.”

Here are profiles of two of All Sports’ alumni, and how they are winning in the game of life:

• Labrawn Saffold was seriously injured in an automobile accident when he was 16-years-old, ending up confined to a wheelchair. However, the chair only confines his body, not his mind or his spirit. Thanks to his involvement with All Sports, Lebrawn is currently enrolled at Hillsborough Community College. More importantly, he is busy mentoring students at his high school alma mater, King High, who in turn travel with him to Tampa’s Academy Prep to mentor students there.

• Adedayo Banwo traveled on city buses three times a week to help with All Sports sponsored activities. It made him determined to escape the poverty of his Robles Park public housing neighborhood. Through his hard work and dedication, and by giving back, Adedayo was able to attend North Carolina State University, thanks in large part to a $100,000 scholarship from the Park Foundation. He later enrolled at Duke University, eventually spending a year at Cambridge University, where he earned a master's degree in philosophy and law. He is now in the first stages of a budding legal career.

These are only two shining examples of the hundreds of young lives and minds shaped by the organization started by Keys over two decades ago. Tyrone has successfully lived out Einstein’s dictum on giving back. By doing so, he’s earned the reward spelled out beautifully by poet Maya Angelou, who said, “I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.”

If her words are true, Tyrone Keys is not only a giver; He is a free soul, indeed.

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