Grid pro urges youngsters to beat odds, never give up
Aveion Cason, former Lakewood star now with the Cowboys, coaches young players in never giving up on their goals.
By ANDREW MEACHAM
Published March 21, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - The most muscular man in the room hunched over a lectern Wednesday, grasping the double-spaced pages of his prepared talk.
"I must admit, I'm a bit nervous," Aveion Cason, pro football player with the Dallas Cowboys, told some 40 children, mostly boys ages 6 to 12, and a smaller number of adults.
Cason had approached Lakewood Junior Spartans president Tonjua Williams about addressing the youngsters. "No one has done that," Williams told the crowd when she introduced Cason. "Not (former Buccaneer quarterback) Shaun King, not anybody."
Cason, 24, maintains a townhome in St. Petersburg when he is not in Dallas. Coach Bill Parcells has used Cason as a change-of-pace back, sharing the load with Troy Hambrick and Rickie Anderson. Until a knee injury sidelined him in December, Cason had quietly been making a case for more playing time, compiling 220 rushing yards at better than five yards a carry. The St. Louis Rams and the Detroit Lions used Cason sparingly his first two seasons.
Cason said he came to Lake Vista Recreation Center on 62nd Avenue S to deliver a message of overcoming frustration and despair to fulfill a dream. He began haltingly, barely audible even with a microphone. Just as he was confessing to nervousness - "This is my first speaking engagement," he said - audience voices were asking him to speak up.
Before Cason could try to do that, the sound system malfunctioned with excessive reverberations. Someone switched off the suddenly discordant amplifier and the audience grew silent to accommodate the speaker.
Most of the boys in the audience play for the Junior Spartans, the team Cason joined at age 6 and for which he has created a motivational program, the Aveion Achievers.
Young Aveion had tried to play for the team at 4 years old, but had to wait until he was old enough. "As a kid I was roughed up," he said.
He compensated for his lack of size by lifting weights, and by his junior year at Lakewood High School, he could bench press 380 pounds. A discovery that he lived outside Lakewood's school zone made him ineligible to play football his senior year, a crucial time for getting the attention of college scouts.
"I was crushed."
Illinois State took a chance on him, and Cason excelled as a running back and kickoff return specialist. Proposition 48, an NCAA required minimum for student athletes, made Cason academically ineligible to play football in his senior year of college.
Wednesday, he talked about disappointment, and how sometimes it takes sheer willpower to overcome a sense of hopelessness.
He credited his mother, who worked two jobs to rear five children by herself, his grandmother and his fiancee - "three strong black women" - and God for getting him in a position to win.
The Aveion Achievers, said Junior Spartans president Williams, stresses academics, attitude and athletics. Cason has committed to spending time with the team, and could donate money or participate in fundraising as the group's mission expands. The program could encompass other area teams in the future, Williams said.
Almost all of the children who spoke to a reporter said they want to play professional football one day. Macario Linder, 11, a running back and receiver for the Junior Spartans, said he appreciated Cason's talk. "It's good because it explains what you have to do to get where he is."
Teammate and lineman Trevante Dash, 11, said he appreciated Cason talking about the setbacks he suffered in high school and college.
"I could imagine that must have been hard for him, to sit there while everybody else is playing. What he said inspired me to want to become a football player even more."
