By Lisa Zimmerman, Player Engagement Insider
For a young Jarvis Jenkins, like many of his peers, video games were always a lot more enticing than reading. But, he eventually learned that his priorities needed to change.
Jenkins, a defensive end for the New York Jets, now in his sixth NFL season, began playing football in his native South Carolina at the age of eight. And he loved it. But, as time progressed, his schoolwork didn’t keep up and his parents took drastic measures. His father, who was an assistant coach for Jenkins’ youth football team, pulled his son out and made his participation contingent upon achieving satisfactory grades, impressing upon Jenkins that to lead a successful life, he needed to learn and perform both on and off the field. It was a lesson that stuck with Jenkins and that he now imparts on children whenever he can.
“The main thing I wanted to do was tackle literacy,” he said. “I fought adversity when I was coming up. I didn’t have this resource to read when I wasn’t in school. Later on when I realized I could go to college I didn’t have those tools that I needed to take SAT prep and things like that, so I had to study my butt off to get a degree.”
Jenkins, started the J3 Foundation, based in Clemson, South Carolina where he attended college and which is focused on helping the youth in the area, especially through providing educational resources and support.
“What I want to do is let kids know that I’m not [in the NFL] just because of my physical ability,” Jenkins said. “I got here through education and I want to let them know it starts early. If you start early once you get to that point where you have to get that degree or get that job, you already have those tools that you learned 10, 15 years before.”
Recently, Jenkins connected with Barbershop Books, an organization founded by former elementary school teacher Alvin Irby. The group provides children’s books to barbershops as a way of encouraging kids to read more. There are currently 11 barbershop reading spaces in 11 cities, with the organization looking at ongoing expansion. Jenkins has sponsored a space in a barbershop in Harlem in New York City and he was there to officially open the space and meet and read to a group of third graders.
Irby, who has master’s degrees in both education and public administration, explained that in black communities, barbershops often serve as gathering spaces and by providing children with reading material at their level, they can be encouraged and inspired to make reading a regular part of their lives. This ultimately helps lay the foundation for their educational success and future accomplishments. He cited a statistic that shows children who read for fun even just twice a month have significantly higher reading scores that children who read rarely or not at all.
“The mission is to get young black boys and boys of color to identify as readers by connecting books and reading to a male-centered space,” Irby said. “The question is what environmental factors or social cues are present that would lead a young black boy to conclude reading is something they should do. That’s what Barbershop Books is about, creating transformative experiences that will lead a boy to say, ‘I’m a reader.’”
“Having a professional athlete come and read to children and use his platform to say, ‘Reading is important, I read and I think you should read and I’m going to take time out of my day to come and show support for an organization that’s trying to make a difference in the reading lives to children.’ That means a lot.”
For Jenkins giving back in this way means a lot to him as well. The ability to serve not only as a role model, but also to be part of providing tangible tools that may impact children for the rest of their lives is something he finds both gratifying and important.
“If they read a book in the barbershop and they go home and don’t have anything to do, but they have a book they got in the barbershop, they’ll read a book. So it’s giving them other outlets other than video games. I want to give them a chance to be young adults.”
Lisa Zimmerman is a long-time NFL writer and reporter. She was the Jets correspondent for CBSSports.com, SportsNet New York’s TheJetsBlog.com and Sirius NFL Radio. She has also written for NFL.com.