Ted Ginn Sr. honored with the ''Ohio's Finest'' award

Ohio State insider

Stephen Means

smeans@cleveland.com

Columbus —

Ginn honored: Glenville High School football coach Ted Ginn Sr. was honored Thursday with the ''Ohio's Finest'' award at Ohio State's football coaching clinic.

''It means everything to me,'' Ginn said. ''I've had a ton of kids come here, and they've given them hope, been an example for my kids and treated them really well. More importantly, I know what it means and I teach kids what it means to be an Ohio State person.''

Under Ginn the Tarblooders have found success at the high school level and for almost a decade, the East Side school funneled numerous talented players to Ohio State, many while Jim Tressel was the head coach. From 2002 to '14, Ginn sent 22 players to Columbus including his son Ted Ginn Jr., who is coming off his 12th season in the NFL. In total, 19 former Tarblooders — five of which are still active — have played at least one NFL snap.

Many of those players were stars under Tressel, who had a 106-22 record, seven Big Ten championships and one National Championship in three title game appearances. The NCAA later voided the 12-1 season of 2010.

In addition to Ginn's son, notable former Tarblooders who played for Ohio State include Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith, quarterback Cardale Jones, defensive backs Marshon Lattimore, Donte Whitner and Christian Bryant, and offensive linemen Bryant Browning and Marcus Hall.

Glenville 54, Cleveland John F. Kennedy 8: Coach Ted Ginn Sr. picks up 200th career win

By Tony Bogan
October 6, 2017



CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Glenville sophomore running back Torrance Davis rushed for 93 yards and two touchdowns Friday as host Glenville picked up its fourth straight victory with a 54-8 win over Cleveland JFK.

Glenville came into Friday's game ranked 12th in Division III, Region 10, according to JoeEitel.com.

Friday's win was also career win No. 200 for head coach Ted Ginn Sr.

Glenville got contributions from senior quarterback Xander Spikes, who rushed for a touchdown and threw two scoring passes -- both to senior wide receiver Carlton Swopes -- and senior running back Damion Bailey, who rushed for a pair of touchdowns.

Glenville (4-3, 4-0 Senate) travels to East Tech next Friday, while Cleveland JFK (2-5, 2-2 Senate) hosts Collinwood that day.

For Legendary Cleveland High School Football Coach, It's About Winning at Life

Ted Ginn Sr. and his academy teach pride, loving oneself and giving back to the community

BY THE UNDEFEATED
November 4, 2016

The man on the east side Cleveland football practice field doesn’t look like anyone who might be aligned with the high school football players running their 40-yard practice dashes as the sun starts to dip in the west. He’s dressed in a dark suit, with a bright linen dress shirt and a small dark tie, with dress shoes brightly shining on the recently installed synthetic field.

As he watches the 60 or so players as they finish their 40-yard sprints, Glenville High School football coach Ted Ginn Sr. is not yelling with inspiration or scowling at these young men closing up their Monday workout. He is talking on his cellphone, keeping up with the 400-plus students attending the Cleveland public school he runs, Ginn Academy, and making sure the kids not playing football for him are on the right course toward decent grades and scholarships to colleges by next spring.

And it is that part of the legendary Cleveland football coach that often gets ignored when discussing Ginn’s accomplishments, his leadership academy for young men in Cleveland’s east side African-American community that has not seen the improvement the city’s leadership likes to brag about to national media covering the Republican National Convention and the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA championship this past summer. For Ginn, it is much more practical: get his good football players on scholarship to schools such as Ohio State University, his little players to Division II or III colleges, and the young men at Ginn Academy to accept a scholarship at private colleges that want the students’ ability to get good grades.

What Ginn has been working to do for the past 20 years or so as a head football coach – with the last 10 or so running a separate school concentrating on getting 80 percent of the students college scholarships – has not changed his views, but has better concentrated what he emphasizes. Meaning, what one learned as a 17-year-old either on the football field or within the special school, is essential “to teach them we don’t have time for foolishness, and our goal is to break through from much of the foolishness that society has built into many of their heads,” Ginn said.

After practice this week, senior running back Demerius Goodwin, 17, echoed Ginn’s view that emphasizes hard work and how that translates into improvements after high school football.

“Most of the stuff we learn in playing football for Coach Ginn at Glenville High School is how to be a leader on our time,” Goodwin said after preparing for the state playoffs this week. “We understand more and more that we are responsible for figuring out leadership roles and inspiration for doing those. We realize what we learn in football practice and in school inspired us to improve ourselves and our community.”

The approach to teaching young men is a key to what Ginn does as both a football coach and as a director of Ginn Academy. “Everything I’ve talked about in the past is now in real time and something we have to adjust to,” Ginn said. “Our young people are being taught that everything is in an uproar and is crazy for them. But we have concentrated on dealing with young people from our heart and to help them with their attitude on what comes out of their mouth.

“People often try to emphasize that football is the greatest thing we do for young men in our community in Cleveland, but they are missing the purpose,” Ginn said. “Love is the greatest thing we do, and how they learn to use love in their lives when they move on from us. It is not complicated what we teach and how we inspire these students.”

A STEADY STREAM OF PLAYERS TO OHIO STATE

What Ginn has done in Cleveland is important in many respects. He was born in Louisiana, moved to Cleveland with his mother when he was 11 and later attended Glenville High School. He worked as a security guard after graduating in 1974, and later volunteered as a football coach at his alma mater starting in 1976. He was appointed head coach in 1997, and his players became known as good scholarship players for the Big Ten. During Ginn’s nearly 20 years as head coach, about 100 players have gone on to play football at Ohio State University.

With nine players currently in the NFL – including his son Ted Ginn Jr. with the Carolina Panthers, Cardale Jones with the Buffalo Bills and Donte Whitner with the Washington Redskins – the Glenville Tarblooders are one of the most successful programs at producing professional football talent. In 2006, Ginn was offered jobs outside of Ohio, including as a football coach in high schools in the Dallas area in Texas.

“I had opportunity to leave Ohio and go to Texas and get paid $100,000 a year coaching football,” Ginn said. “But at the time, with my son and others I coached moving forward to success in college and the NFL, I realized my purpose was to help out young men in Cleveland. I saw these kids as God’s kids, and I learned we had to pick up the pace.”

And it was the challenges he faced that changed him. By staying in Cleveland, he was allowed to open Ginn Academy in 2007. And in 2012, he was close to death after it was discovered that he had pancreatic cancer. “I was sick because of my working in this football business,” Ginn said now as he looks back. “I found out that at times I was sacrificing myself to sports. But I’ve changed somewhat now to where I coach both men and the kids playing and import wisdom and love in what they do.”

Antoin Eley, who played for Ginn at Glenville in the early 1990s and now works in youth support programs for his former coach at Ginn Academy, said that his old coach is now stronger than he ever was. “I could see his heart change in some respects when he decided to stay in Cleveland in the late 2000s and that his heart was a positive way to reach out to young people who had needs,” Eley said.

“Our community is suffering, despite what the leadership in Cleveland says,” Eley said. “But Mr. Ginn knows his key contribution is to give pride and teach people in high school how to have pride and contribute to this city. Some of the leadership in Cleveland ignored the problems in the African-American community in Cleveland, but we know that what we are doing is bigger than football and could have a drastic impact on our people and the neighborhood in which we live.”

SUCCESS IS ABOUT SAVING LIVES, NOT JUST WINNING GAMES

For the 61-year-old coach and high school administrator, his purpose seems more obvious than it ever has been. The African-American population in the city knows that the growth in Cleveland has been in whiter neighborhoods and has been hard to find in African-American areas on the city’s east side. Neighborhoods such as Hough, Glenville and Collinwood, where Ginn has concentrated his efforts, all have lost population since 2000, have seen increases in shootings, few business openings and the degeneration of housing stock.

“We are losing many people in these black neighborhoods in Cleveland because there is no investment by the city and business leaders,” Ginn said. “What we are trying to do to inspire those who attend our school and play football for us is to have our students be the examples of hope for others and hope for the rest of the city of Cleveland.

“I have learned over time that both football and our school are both teaching the same thing,” Ginn said. “We teach them to understand the value of life. Things are not moving fast enough for the African-American community on the east side of Cleveland. What we work with is educating our children that they need to try hard to help their families because in so many cases the families they come from are broken and those families need leadership from them after they graduate high school.”

For Ginn, the difference between the destitute African-American neighborhoods in Cleveland and those areas seeing investment is part of the changes Cleveland needs to address. Richey Piiparinen, director of the Center for Population Dynamics at Cleveland State University, brought out such issues in a 2015 Cleveland Magazine article. “A number of quality of life indicators, outcomes in various east side neighborhoods are below that of developing nations,” he wrote.

“According to data by Case Western Reserve University, homicide rates for sections of the city are similarly comparable,” Piiparinen continued. “In 2010, homicide rates in Ward 1, comprising parts of the southeast side, and Ward 9, which entails Glenville, are similar to Guatemala and El Salvador … where the spatial patterns of having and not having mean poverty gets pushed together, not alleviated. When cities [like Cleveland] evolve as separate and unequal, they create a deepening sense of alienation and marginalization.”

With a 7-3 record this year, Ginn’s Glenville High School football team has qualified for the state playoffs that begin this weekend. Glenville travels about two hours west to Toledo to play Anthony Wayne High School on Friday night, and if they win, they will likely be playing future games in the Cleveland area.

Ginn is confident in his players and coaches, and thinks this year will be the one where the school has success, possibly even a state championship (they’ve made the playoffs 12 times in the past 18 seasons).

“I’ve picked up the pace since my pancreas problems, and I had to face it and how it affects my life and the kids we teach,” Ginn said. “I’ve learned it is all about being a servant, and I now know that is about investing in people without looking for anything in return. If you aren’t in this for those reasons, you’re a user.”

The Ted Ginn Foundation presents: Walking the Talk

Ted Ginn Sr. and Chuck Kyle heading into Greater Cleveland Sports Hall together is a shared legacy

Ted Ginn Sr., pictured at a 2011 Glenville football game, won't give up or give in. He'll return to the sidelines this summer, and will be inducted with St. Ignatius' Chuck Kyle into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame in September.
Lisa DeJong, The Plain Dealer

By Tim Warsinskey, The Plain Dealer

July 1, 2013


CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Winning is not a legacy in high school sports. I've known coaches who've won and were disliked or disrespected by their athletes, and with good reason.

Chuck Kyle wins. Ted Ginn Sr. wins. They have between them 17 state championships in football and track, and more than 450 football victories.

Their paths have different starting points, but the finished products have so much in common beyond winning. Ginn's and Kyle's legacies are the young men they lead, the ones who love and respect their coach and carry his imprint into our community for years to come. It is entirely appropriate Kyle and Ginn will be inducted simultaneously into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame in September. The Hall made the announcement last week.

Kyle of St. Ignatius starts his day teaching the values of Chaucer and Shakespeare at the elite, all-boys Catholic school. If a kid can cut it there academically, it stands to reason he'll bring a good work ethic to practice. Half the battle already has been won.

St. Ignatius, of course, attracts some of Northeast Ohio's most promising student-athletes. Once they arrive at West 30th and Lorain, they benefit from outstanding coaches, and many have family support for individualized private training that polishes their talent.

That formula has produced 11 state football titles and one in track track for Kyle.

Ginn, of course, has a different situation at Glenville. He does draw elite student-athletes from across Cleveland to play at East 113th and St. Clair. During the day, many attend Ginn Academy, the all-boys school he founded, where discipline and academic standards are higher than other Cleveland schools. Once again, those who succeed there typically have the right makeup for athletics at Glenville.

The similarities with St. Ignatius end there. Glenville student-athletes have an entirely different set of circumstances, of course. Many come from single-parent homes with few financial resources, and live in sometimes dangerous neighborhoods. Ginn speaks so often of “saving kids' lives'' that it's easy to become numb to the term, but it's a constant reality for the children he mentors.

Ginn has been part of five state track titles, but not winning a football championship is viewed by close-minded fans as some kind of failure. It's a meaningless statistic. The failures that eat at Ginn are the kids he didn't reach, or didn't listen, and wind up in jail or worse.

“He’s changed so many lives that you can’t put a number on it,'' San Francisco 49ers safety Donte Whitner told The Plain Dealer's Mary Kay Cabot before playing in this year's Super Bowl. Whitner counted himself among the saved.

What endures about Kyle and Ginn is they refuse to give up or give in. Each is in a position to retire, and scoffs at the notion. Despite serious health problems and missing the 2012 football season, Ginn will be back on the sideline this fall, and he has taken over once again as head track coach after several years in the background. Kyle thinks summer vacation is for summer school and minicamps, and he's headed for his 31st football season and 41st track season.

Inducting Kyle and Ginn into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame continues a long narrative of recognition the two receive, recognition that begins with leading high-profile football teams in a football town. If they were volleyball coaches, their impact would be just as great, but we wouldn't be having this conversation.

In a way, they represent hundreds who might never receive the same public appreciation, but also are doing the real work of educators that isn't measured by victories, trophies or state tests. When I think of Ginn, I also think of St. Vincent-St. Mary track coach Dan Lancianese and Kent Roosevelt football coach John Nemec. When I think of Kyle, I am reminded of Maple Heights volleyball coach Betsy Smerglia and Glenville girls basketball coach Renee Wright. They walk the same walk and endure the same headaches and heartaches as Kyle and Ginn.

Their task is to mold men and women, and the fact they continue to do so with such vigor, purpose and character, we're all better for it. That is their shared legacy.

Ted Ginn Sr. returns more inspired than ever to save kids

Ted Ginn, right, poses with former Glenville football player Willie Henry on the day Henry signed with Michigan in February 2012. Ginn says graduating kids is winning, and sending them to college is "dominating.'' (John Kuntz, The Plain Dealer)

By Tim Warsinskey, The Plain Dealer

May 6, 2013

CLEVELAND, Ohio – This will seem weird, but it's the way my mind works sometimes.

When I look at Ted Ginn Sr., I think of Ted Kennedy.

Specifically, I recall Kennedy's speech to the 1980 Democratic convention, which ended:

“For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.''

That was Kennedy's concession speech upon losing the presidential nomination to Jimmy Carter, the point being Kennedy wasn't conceding his life's purpose.

Ginn has been to the brink and back this school year, having survived pancreatic cancer, and he sounded Monday like a guy who isn't conceding anything, much less his mission.

With a clean bill of health, Ginn returned to work full-time April 25 as executive director at the all-boys public school he founded six years ago, Ginn Academy in Collinwood. He plans to be back on the sidelines as head football coach at Glenville this fall after missing all of last season.

“I missed the relationships with the kids and just being around people,'' Ginn said. “When you're incarcerated in a place like that (the hospital), you miss the simple things about life.''

Three surgeries and a long hospital stay took a toll. He walks gingerly, but he's regaining his strength. He made it through a long track meet in Austintown on Saturday without any problems. He's lost more than 50 pounds.

During his treatment and recovery, Ginn was urged to retire by those close to him, including his son, Carolina Panthers wide receiver Ted Ginn Jr. He wanted his father to kick back and enjoy life.

Ginn, 57, will not hear of it. His cause endures and his work goes on.

“This is my life. This is my calling. This is what I do. What am I going to retire to? This is what kept me alive,'' he said, emphasizing alive.

Ginn firmly believes had it not been for his mission to “save lives” of his students, cancer would have claimed his. He said retiring from a life devoted to at-risk, inner-city kids would have been selfish.

“I'd only be thinking about myself. If I didn't have purpose and love and understanding, then God wouldn't have kept me here,'' he said.

Ginn always speaks more like a mentor and preacher than a coach, and he sounded more inspired than ever about his job and his students, which might explain the approach he's taking to the coming football season.

Glenville missed the playoffs in 2011 and 2012, going 1-5 in nonleague games. This year, in the new seven-division playoff format, Glenville is expected to drop to Division II and presumably does not need a demanding nonleague schedule to make the playoffs. But the Tarblooders open 2013 with road games against Division I powers St. Edward, Solon and Cleveland Heights. Glenville's roster is stocked with its usual assortment of highly regarded college recruits.

“We aren't ducking nobody,'' Ginn said. “It's not a duck situation. We're striving to represent our community. We're just trying to compete on the highest level we can no matter what kind of talent people think we have.''

Glenville should be in the discussion for its first state championship, but you won't hear Ginn talking about it. When Ginn says compete, he's never talking about wins and losses, let alone state glory.

“I'm not going to wake up every morning and say, 'I'm going to win a state tile,''' he said. “I don't care we didn't make the playoffs. We had a great season. I engaged the kids.

“This is why I don't care: When you graduate a kid in high school, you win. You're talking about football and winning games and going to playoffs. When you graduate a kid out of Glenville or Ginn Academy, you're winning. When you have one who goes to college, you're dominating.''

Ginn said his academy graduates about 95 percent of its students, which this year includes 62 seniors.

I pressed Ginn to discuss his team's prospects this fall, telling him Glenville football fans want to know. Ginn countered with his constant worry about kids who are lost to jail, death and unproductive lives, making my questions seem irrelevant. It prompted him to say, “I don't like sports.''

Sports, he said, skew some people's perspective of his mission.

“This is Glenville football; this is what Glenville football is about: You can look at the scoreboard all you want, and you never get the answer,'' he said.

In 2008, stricken with cancer that eventually would take Kennedy's life, the Senator addressed another Democratic convention and put a different spin on his famous 1980 speech, ending with a line that makes me think of Ginn even more today.

“The dream lives on.''

Striving to maintain Glenville legacy

April 13, 2013

By Matt Florjancic, Staff Writer


For those who played under Ted Ginn Sr. at Glenville High School, the pride they had while wearing the familiar black and red jerseys stays with them long after they leave the Cleveland school.

Three former Glenville High School football players are looking to carry on the tradition that started with Super Bowl XLVII participants Donte Whitner and Ted Ginn Jr., who were two of the nearly 10 former Tarblooders in the NFL last year.

Hawaii defensive back Mike Edwards, Louisiana Tech safety Jamel Johnson, and Toledo tight end Cordale Scott were three of the 14 Cleveland-area natives who worked out in front of the Cleveland Browns’ scouting department and coaches at the team’s Berea training facility Friday.

“I’m just trying to keep that legacy going,” Scott said. “We’ve got Ted Ginn, Donte Whitner, Troy Smith, legendary guys at Glenville. It’s just an honor to be (mentioned) with those guys. It was God putting me in certain situations to go to Glenville because I could’ve gone any other way, but Glenville’s a great program. Other high schools don’t give what Glenville gives, so it was a great opportunity.”

“As you can see, it’s tattooed on me,” Johnson said as he pointed to his left biceps. “I learned so many lessons there, life lessons, and Glenville is major in developing me as a man. Coach (Ted) Ginn does a great job over there, he and coach Tony Overton. I got the opportunity to grow up around these great men, mentors that want nothing but the best for the kids there.”

Johnson, Edwards and Scott said playing for Glenville’s coach, Ted Ginn Sr., was a unique experience because he represented a father-figure in their lives.

“I just learned to take off that mask, and do the things off the field that you would do on the field,” Edwards said. “I learned a lot about life from Coach Ginn, and it meant a lot for me to play for him. He taught me. When I didn’t have a father, that was my dad. Coach Ginn has always been there in my life, and it’s been a tremendous experience to not only play for him, but to be a part of that man’s life.”

Ginn was a volunteer coach at Glenville from 1976-86, and moved into an assistant’s role in 1986. In 1997, Ginn became the Tarblooders’ head coach, and has taught his charges many lessons since that time.

One of the lessons Ginn passed on to his players is the importance of representing the program and serving as an example for the next generation of Tarblooders.

“That’s huge, just to carry on the torch and have that feeling that it will go on, and more than what it means to me, what it will mean to that guy who’s younger than me to say, ‘He did it. Why can’t I do it?’” Johnson said. “I think it’s more about that visual for the kids and the younger guys to know that it can be done.”

Edwards added, “It means a lot for us, the younger guys to keep the legacy going because that’s all Coach Ginn wants us to do. That’s all Coach Ginn implements in the program, to be the best that you can be. Whether that’s in life, whether that’s in football, I just want to be the best Mike that I can be. That’s what I live my life by every day. It’s not about me anymore. It’s about my two boys, and it’s about the kids that come up under me, the younger boys at Glenville. It’s about them, and it’s up to me to help set the legacy for those boys.”

Glenville grads playing in Super Bowl giving their all for their former coach, Ted Ginn Sr.

Ted Ginn Jr., right, and his dad, Ted Ginn Sr., are sharing a special week in New Orleans. Ted Jr. is a kick returner for the 49ers who played for his dad at Glenville. Ted Sr. is fighting cancer, which kept him off the Glenville sidelines last fall.Roadell Hickman, The Plain Dealer

By Mary Kay Cabot, The Plain Dealer

February 1, 2013

NEW ORLEANS -- San Francisco 49ers safety and Cleveland native Donte Whitner, who will face the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl on Sunday, pointed to a tattoo on his bulging forearm during a media session Thursday that read, "Thank God for Ginn."

The indelible mark on his arm -- and on his soul -- is a tribute to his former Glenville High School coach and father figure, Ted Ginn Sr., who has been battling pancreatic cancer since August and is in New Orleans to watch Whitner and his son, 49ers receiver Ted Ginn Jr., play in the biggest game of their lives.

"Teddy and I would not be here today at the Super Bowl without Ted Ginn Sr.," said Whitner, the 49ers' starting strong safety. "Ever since we were kids, Ted pushed us to get to where we are right now -- from Glenville to Ohio State to now. And to have him here with us after everything that he's been through this year makes it all the more special."

In late August, just before the start of the high school football season, Ginn Sr., who has transformed the lives of hundreds of inner-city kids at Glenville and Ginn Academy for underprivileged boys, was rushed to University Hospitals for emergency hernia surgery. During post-operative exams, his surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Hardacre, discovered a tumor on Ginn's pancreas that was producing excess insulin.

Ginn, 57, quietly stepped away from the Glenville sideline to begin a journey of surgeries and recovery that has left him 55 pounds lighter and more grateful than ever to be alive. Hardacre removed the tumor in mid-October, but Ginn suffered a complication that required a follow-up surgery. Subsequently, he developed fluid in his lungs and had to undergo another procedure.

All told, he spent about 60 days in the hospital and was released just after Christmas.

"He's been to hell and back," Hardacre said. "It's a miracle how well he's recovered from a difficult post-operative course. But fortunately, he has a very good chance of being cured of his form of pancreatic cancer. If you're going to have one, it's the kind you want to have."

Ginn's voice is weak but his spirit is strong. He has spent the week in New Orleans, not far from where he was born and raised, relishing in the joy of Whitner and his son being in the Super Bowl.

"There's no question, I'm a walking miracle," he said. "I'm blessed to be here. The doctors called me their miracle man. If not for God's grace, I wouldn't be here. I have good days and bad days, but I wouldn't have missed this for the world."

For Ginn Jr., who mostly returns punts and kicks for the Niners, watching his dad enjoy the Super Bowl festivities has been the highlight of his week.

"I watched him [Tuesday at media day]," said Ginn Jr. "Just to watch him look around, he wanted to cry, but he couldn't. It's big. No matter what goes on, I'll be happy that I gave him this opportunity to experience this. It's a dream come true for him."

Ginn Jr. struggled to get through this season, knowing his dad was 2,200 miles away, fighting for his life.

"I was very, very afraid of losing him," Ginn Jr. said. "It was really tough knowing I couldn't get there, couldn't be there for him every day. That was the scary part."
At midseason, the 49ers gave him a couple of days off so he could fly home and be by his father's side after one of his surgeries.

"That kind of gave him the push to get back on his feet," Ginn Jr. said.

"Ted's visit was like a shot of medicine," Ginn Sr. said. "Certain people in your life are better for you than medicine, and that's what Ted is to me."

Ginn Jr. watched his dad, a father figure to so many and a rock in the community, fight hard in the hospital, even when he had no strength.

"He doesn't depend on anybody," Ginn Jr. said. "Everybody depends on him. He's so headstrong that, when they were telling [him] in [the hospital] he couldn't get up and walk, he was telling them he could. He showed us another side of himself. We had to watch him man up and toughen up. Him doing that, it made me be a better man."

Ginn Jr. knew how much it tortured his dad not being on the sidelines with his Tarblooders.

"I watched him miss his whole football season and my whole football season," he said. "I watched him miss football, period, from the high-school level to the pro level. He'll usually catch the Ohio State games, he'll usually catch my teams, so for us to be still standing -- and for him to be with us -- it's a blessing."

Ginn Jr. has watched his father endure so much this season that he wants him to quit coaching football.

"I want him to hang it up," Ginn Jr. said. "It's time. He's done everything he could possibly do. He's had 18 Division I scholarships, and he's had 22 kids go to Division 1 schools. He had at least two or three kids in the Big Ten at each school. He had at least seven, eight, nine kids in the NFL. He's done. There's nothing more for him to accomplish.

"I want him to go home and chill with my twins [2-year-olds Ted III and Kyrsten]. I want him to smell the roses, walk his dogs and kick rocks."

But for Ginn Sr,, whose Tarblooders are as much a ministry for saving lives as a football team, a return to the sidelines is one of the things that's been keeping him going.

"I just need to get a little stronger and get my endurance back," he said. "In a month or so, I'll be back at work."

Whitner, who was hit by a car at age 6 and was told he'd never walk again, will never forget how hard Ginn Sr. pushed him to get to this point.

"When I wanted to go right, he wanted me to go left," Whitner said. "He started me and Ted Ginn on the same program as young kids. We had personal trainers five days a week together, protein shakes, extra weight lifting. Ted would drive us to a hill . . . and make us run up and down. We wanted to go to the school dance, and he wouldn't allow it."

Ginn Sr. pushed them so hard that Whitner often told his mom, Deborah, that he wanted to quit.

"Then she'd call coach, and he'd come over and sit on my couch and tell me why I shouldn't quit and motivate me to go back to the gym and work out again. He's changed so many lives that you can't put a number on it. Every college coach in the country knows who Ted Ginn Sr. is and respects him."

Ginn Sr., who currently doesn't have to undergo chemotherapy or further treatment for his cancer, had a method to his madness for driving his son and Whitner.

"I kept them the whole day -- from 6 [o'clock] to 6," he said. "That was purposely done so they could play college football and have a chance to get to the NFL. This is the moment I expected for them and that they've trained for all of their lives."

But now, Ginn Sr. said, they have to close the deal and the win the game.

"If Ted and Donte win the Super Bowl, a lot of people in our community would benefit from it," he said. "It would mean everything. Think of how many more lives could be saved because so many kids look up to them. I want to make sure that the kids walking the streets of Cleveland are be inspired by Ted and Donte and know they can achieve their goals, too."

Someday, Ginn Jr. would like to return to Cleveland and coach football, although maybe not at Glenville, where the shoes to fill are enormous. He'd also like to carry on his dad's legacy and keep Ginn Academy going strong. But for now, Ginn Jr. and Whitner on are on a mission to win this game for Ginn Sr.

Ginn Jr. has vowed to play his heart out for his dad, and Whitner has dedicated the game to him.

"If we win this game," Ginn Jr. said, "I'll give my Super Bowl ring straight to him."

San Francisco 49ers' Ted Ginn Jr. followed his father's path

By Cam Inman

October 27, 2011

Ted Ginn Sr. would rent a van every June and load up the precious cargo: young, promising but overlooked high school athletes.

They would depart from the Cleveland area and travel to colleges all across the country, determined to make an impression on others -- not to mention themselves.
Two of those players now start for the 49ers: wide receiver Ted Ginn Jr. and strong safety Donte Whitner.

"I felt everybody wanted to go to Texas and Florida to get athletes, and I wanted to change that," Ginn Sr. said by phone Thursday. "I had to turn the heads of the universities to make people see that there is greatness in Cleveland, there is greatness in Ohio, there is greatness at Glenville High School.

"Those guys were the pioneers."

Since those trailblazing days, Ginn, the head coach at Glenville, has helped more than 100 players earn college scholarships and launched a school for at-risk boys. He and his wife will make the trip west to watch the 49ers face the hometown Browns on Sunday -- only this time by airplane rather than rental van.

"It was all his vision. I know for a fact me and Teddy are in the National Football League because of him," Whitner said. " ... We didn't really believe that we could make it to this level."

The younger Ginn and Whitner were teammates at Glenville and Ohio State before starting their NFL careers with lowly franchises in Miami and Buffalo, respectively. Now 26, both are flourishing in their first year together in San Francisco.

Their path was laid by the elder Ginn, whose had an immeasurable impact in the Cleveland community. Among the slew of athletes he has helped earn scholarships is Troy Smith, who won the Heisman Trophy at Ohio State in 2006 and played quarterback for the 49ers last season.

"He means a lot to the community, to the people, to the kids," Ted Jr. said of his dad, noting the good examples he has to show others. "It makes his job a little easier. He can say, 'Hey look, it can happen for you if you do this, do that.' "

Five years ago, the all-male Ginn Academy opened, and enrollment has risen steadily to 300 students. Ted Jr. paid a visit during the 49ers' five-day layover in Ohio last month. In showing them that he's just a regular guy, the 49ers' speedy return man may have very well saved a few lives, his father reasons.

"We came from an environment that didn't have expectations," Ted Sr. said. "I started teaching expectations, then it takes kids like them to achieve it to give the next group hope."

That message echoed throughout a rental van nearly a decade ago. The Ginns and other prospects were a traveling showcase, rolling from state to state. They would bunk at hotels and sometimes get caught with too many people in a room. Those seven to 10 passengers learned they were just as talented as the Florida and Texas players labeled No. 1 by the recruiting magazines.

"We'd go around to schools -- from Purdue to North Carolina State to Florida to Miami -- and we were competing against all these kids," Whitner said. "We would start to gain more and more confidence."

Glenville became a talent pipeline to Ohio State, starting in 2002 with Smith, who referred to Ted Sr. as "my dad" in his Heisman Trophy acceptance speech.

Whitner traced his work ethic to his high school days with the elder Ginn. At the time, Whitner's father, Lindsey Robinson, was in jail on robbery and drug charges. Whitner lived with his mom but would get daily rides from Ginn, who also would take the boys to a personal trainer after practice and then back to the Ginn house for protein shakes.

"He was really tough on us," Whitner said. "I was almost his son in high school. I am his son."

Whitner signed a three-year, $11.75 million contract with the 49ers this summer and reunited with Ginn, who was traded from Miami to San Francisco in April 2010.

Together they've contributed to the 49ers' hot start. While Whitner has solidified the secondary, Ginn's return skills are among the league's best; Ginn scored touchdowns on kickoff and punt returns to clinch the season-opening win over Seattle.

On Sunday at Candlestick Park, Ted Sr. will get to watch both of his sons in action, a culmination of the dream hatched on cross-country van trips many years ago.

"I gave them a game plan and a blueprint on how they need to go through life, to achieve things they're able to achieve," Ted Sr. said. "Then I gave them a work ethic that they didn't like. Now they understand why that work ethic they had in high school has paid off -- to get paid for something they love."

A high school hotbed

Glenville coach Ted Ginn Sr. talks to his team. Ginn's rolling showcase helped make his team the top Big Ten recruiting factory since 2002.

By Dirk Chatelain

August 20, 2011

The best high school football factory in the Big Ten started when a security guard rented a seven-passenger van.

A decade later, Glenville Academic Campus in Cleveland is the most important place on every recruiting map. You want to build a Big Ten dynasty? You'd better start here.

With Ted Ginn Sr.

He has sent 31 players to Big Ten schools over the past decade. No other school in the country has produced more than 12.

How did it happen?

Ginn's mother moved him from New Orleans to Cleveland when he was 11. He played for Glenville in an era when Glenville didn't win anything.

Two years after he graduated, his mother died.

The head coach made Ginn volunteer on the football staff “so I wouldn't go astray.” In '97, Ginn took over the program. School security guard by day, head football coach by night.

Soon he established a bold plan to draw attention to his players. Instead of waiting for college coaches to call him, Ginn took his players on the road. He packed them in a van and spent most of the summer ushering them to college camps.

Sometimes seven or eight slept in the van. Sometimes they piled into one hotel room. The next morning, they showed up at a campus, spent an hour or two running through drills, then hit the road for the next stop. They drove as far as LSU.

Ginn recalls telling college head coaches like Nick Saban that he had five kids in his van who could run a 4.3-second 40-yard dash.

“Everybody used to laugh at me,” Ginn Sr. said.

Until they observed the talent in the van. Pierre Woods was the first Glenville player to take advantage of Ginn's recruiting showcase on wheels. In 2001, he signed with Michigan.

Why limit the journey to seven passengers, Ginn decided. He got a bus. Picked up kids all over Cleveland. Why limit it to Cleveland, Ginn decided. He picked up kids all over the state. Columbus. Dayton. Toledo.

“When you're driving around and putting on a show like that, word is going to travel,” Ginn said.

Now Ginn's teams regularly compete for state championships. Now the Glenville Tarblooders attract players from all over the city.

“It's kind of the all-stars of Cleveland,” said Bill Conley, a former Buckeyes assistant.

Ginn, who knows Bo Pelini, recalls days when eight or nine Big Ten coaches came to Glenville. The most frequent visitor: Ohio State.

Of the 31 Glenville players who signed with Big Ten schools the past decade, 17 landed at Ohio State.
Pretty good players, too. Troy Smith, Heisman Trophy winner. First-round draft picks Donte Whitner and Ted Ginn Jr.

In February, the Glenville pipeline continued. One player signed with Indiana, one with Michigan, one with Ohio State.

Ted Ginn Sr. doesn't need a van or a bus. Now the recruiters come to him.

Glenville High Coach Ted Ginn Sr. Helps Players Go From Boys to Men

By Justice B. Hill

November 18, 2010

CLEVELAND -- The teenager, a manila folder in his hand, walks reed straight into the principal's office at Ginn Academy. He is in a crisp, bleach-white shirt and black slacks with a black leather belt, and he wears a red tie with black stripes.

Stopping at the front desk, the teenager asks the receptionist a question. She tells him she can't answer it. She escorts the teen into an anteroom to wait for one of the academy's administrators.

Other teens soon follow.

All are polite and cheerful, all nattily dressed in the academy's uniform and colors: black, white and red.

No blue jeans sagging off a boy's butt.

No faded T-shirts with Gucci Mane's image on it.

There are appropriate settings for such urban attire, but Ginn Academy, the only all-male public school in Ohio, is not one of them.

Ted Ginn Sr., the man whose name is stretched across the school's brick facade, wouldn't allow it. To Ginn, educating teenagers is serious business, so he brooks no foolishness. He knows he has a task that some people think he isn't equipped to handle.

In a sense, their criticism is fair. Ginn has no formal credentials as an educator. His calling card, really, has been his ability to create from rocky terrain a football dynasty at Glenville High School, his alma mater, and turn it into fertile ground for recruiters from Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, North Carolina Central, West Virginia, the University of Miami, Ball State and colleges elsewhere.

Yet his critics ignore the intersection of coaching teens and teaching teens, a fact not lost on Ginn. He points out one trait his critics disregard: he can relate to kids.

Few men and women do so any better.

Yes, he isn't the classic educator. He lacks the college degrees and an office wall crowded with teaching awards. He concedes as much.

Ginn, however, blunts such criticism with what too many educators, their credentials and high-minded titles notwithstanding, don't grasp. He deals in "hope," one thing a teenager needs in abundance.

"Kids come here because they want a chance," Ginn said. "I have expressed to them that they got hope."

The 290 teenagers who attend the three-year-old Ginn Academy, a recycled middle school on the city's East Side, do have a chance. He reminds each of them they can be a father and a husband; they can be a doctor and a lawyer.

But they must first be a good man.

Boys to Men



Nothing defines Ted Ginn Sr. and his mission in life any better than this: he wants to help boys become men.

His effort to churn out men began in a public way in 1997 when he took over the football program at Glenville. He got the job because nobody else wanted it. Not that the program was sorry. As inner-city programs go, Ginn landed a decent one -- a program with potential.

He never doubted he could squeeze all the potential out of it. The talent has always been there; it was there when Ginn wore the Black and Red back in the 1970s, he says. What was not there were locker rooms, a weight room, a decent practice facility, dedicated coaches, discipline and the unshakable resolve that leads to success.

Through force of his personality, Ginn instilled discipline. He raised money to add a weight room; he hired coaches who shared his passion; he won games -- lots of 'em.

Ginn, 55, has never lost a regular-season game in the eight-team Senate League. His Tarblooders have become the 2010 version of Massillon, Canton McKinley, Steubenville, Bishop Moeller and other historic powers in Ohio high school football.

"He understands what it means to be a Tarblooder -- to wear that 'G' on the side of their helmets," said Pierre Woods, a former NFL player and a Michigan grad who played for Ginn a decade ago. "It's a pride thing, and that's what it's about: being proud."

Woods and his teammates didn't just represent a high school; they represented a community and its spirit. They weren't playing just for themselves; they were playing for their parents, their siblings and their friends.

Ginn taught players like Troy Smith, Donte Whitner, Rob Rose, Ted Ginn Jr. and Woods to believe in themselves and to own up to their weaknesses and shore them up. Ginn Sr. talked about more than success on the football field; he talked about success in life.

"Like he always told me -- and I'm sure he told other guys -- at the end of the day, it's up to you," Woods said. "The only person that can make you fail is yourself."

Failure?

The word is anathema to Ginn. He espouses a gospel of success, and the program he runs reflects it. Glenville, a success for more than a decade, was one of the top-rated programs in Ohio this season. In various national polls, his Tarblooders had been ranked as high as No. 4.

His roster boasted some of the premier talent in the country, including quarterback Cardale Jones and wide receiver Shane Wynn.

Success, well, no one uses the same yardstick to measure it as Ginn does. If all he wanted for his program was a lot of wins, he feels he would be cheating the teenagers who have come out for his football team.

Ginn does stress winning. All coaches do, right? But he also preaches passion and commitment and personal responsibility. Playing for Ginn has never been about football alone; mostly, it has been about life itself.

He told his players not to settle for success. He didn't see that as a grand enough purpose.

"You have to talk about being 'great,'" Ginn said.

What Price for Greatness?

Greatness doesn't come gift-wrapped. While athletic skills are wonderful to have, athleticism guarantees a man little in this hi-tech world. Nor does athleticism last forever.

What then?

To Ginn, education is the answer. Commit to education, he tells his football players, and if they do, they will always have skills that play well in the workplace.

Ensuring that his players and the students at Ginn Academy, which has no varsity athletics, have a strong educational foundation is Ginn's mission. He has sent close to 300 of his athletes to college.

Inside the school he started, Ginn sits in a conference room. His thoughts are a long way from football this afternoon. He's been wearing his educator's hat. He's spent most of the morning talking with the academy's principal and a principal from a high school in Columbus, Ohio.

His cell phone rings often. His administrative assistant interrupts now and again as Ginn juggles his business, which is saving young souls.

"If I don't do something everyday to make a difference in somebody's life, then I had a bad day," he said, leaning back in his chair.

That's the reason Ginn pushed hard for the academy -- pounding on doors and cashing in IOUs to make it happen. He wanted to provide black teenagers in Cleveland more than what they might have found elsewhere. He wanted a place where teenagers in his buttoned-down academy could learn, a place where they could thrive and a place where they could be shielded, if only for a few hours, from the hard realities of the 'hood: gangs, drugs and senseless crimes.

So he takes pride in what the academy has become. His plans are to build a second academy. Not just a second, actually, but a third and a fourth -- urban schools that push academics hard.

Not everybody at the academy or Glenville will end up with the NFL careers like Woods, Whitner, Ginn Jr. and Smith. The rest will need to carve out a life in business or politics or in a service industry.

That's where they'll find their success -- or their greatness. Ginn intends to help them however he can. His focus is on giving them hope and to saving their souls.

"What's killing me is I can't save more, that I can't get myself in an environment where we can mass produce saving, because I still have someone at the end of the assembly line blocking it -- holding it up," he said.

For now, he finds solace in the fact he's helping a lot of black teenagers find their bearings. He's giving them hope and a chance, which is what all educators ought to be doing.

And Ginn is -- 24/7.

"There's no finish line," he said with a sigh. "Finish what? You have a new group tomorrow."

Riding a Dream to the State Title Game

Ted Ginn Sr. with his team at Glenville, the first Cleveland public school to play for a state title.

By GREG BISHOP

December 5, 2009

CLEVELAND — On Thursday, the football team at Glenville High School sauntered into the gymnasium, their bodies swinging to bass beats. This was not a normal pep rally. Recruiters from major colleges lined the walls. A local radio station hosted.

When it ended, the players headed to their final practice before they become the first Cleveland public school to play for a state championship on Saturday. Swept up by euphoria, they bounded past the writing on the wall, two words that summed their season. Making history, it read.

“To take an inner-city school in Cleveland and compete like this, it’s an it-only-happens-once thing,” said Stan Parrish, the Ball State coach and Ohio native. “It’s something you read about in a book, or see in a movie.”

Glenville has produced the track icon Jesse Owens and the creators of the Superman comic book, but never a state football champion. The high school is located east of downtown, past neighborhoods pocked with boarded-up houses and men sitting on stoops, sipping tall cans of beer on a recent morning.

The majority of the players attend nearby Ginn Academy, the brainchild of Ted Ginn Sr., who doubles as Glenville’s football coach. Earlier this week, they met with a youth minister and scribbled their distractions on scraps of paper.

This is a sampling of what they wrote: “My father doesn’t want me” “I used to watch my mom get beat by my stepfather” “We worry about not having a roof over our heads” “My mom lost her job and now I have to pay for groceries and bills.”

The players come from all over, from the suburbs to the projects, from neighborhoods infested by gangs and drugs. They come for structure, for father figures, for football, but mostly, they come for Ginn, whom Parrish described as “where peaceful waters flow.”

Ginn cares little about history, dismissing the obvious narrative — inner-city team beats opponents with more students, more funding, more everything — as too simplistic.

At his academy, the focus is on mentoring, not football. But the core values — discipline, love, passion — remain the same. His is a sociological experiment, Ginn said, with football as the vehicle to disprove myths and perceptions about inner-city schools.

As Ginn built Glenville into a state power, he watched opposing coaches stalk off the field after losses, embarrassed. The same coaches who used to laud Ginn for the impact of his work, now say he cheats or that he recruits, Ginn said.

Therein lies the twist. Can his team teach others their core values through football? Can they prove they are like anybody else?

“That’s what they will confront in corporate America,” Ginn said. “This game, it ain’t the game we’re playing. We’re playing the game of life. I’m teaching everyone, my opponents, this community, you, that the scoreboard will not define us.”

More than 100 of Ginn’s players have earned athletic scholarships, including 21 in 2005. Five play in the N.F.L. This is not his most talented team, but it might be his most unlikely championship candidate.

Strange fruit, Ginn calls this group, sweet and sour and streaky all at once. Like Jayrone Elliott, a senior linebacker who earlier this season lay on the field, as if seriously injured. As Ginn sprinted to his side, Elliott winked and said, “Conserving energy, Coach.” That is strange, Ginn said.

This team always appears lost in space, not paying attention, but they seem to retain everything Ginn says. Before road games, they put on talent shows in the team hotel, providing perfect impressions of their coaches.

Ginn said that was their genius. They are goofy, but faithful. They win because they love their coach, their program and their community.

The unlikely championship contenders follow a man with unusual methods, a visionary who sees in them what others miss. Ginn rules with a heavy hand and a soft touch.

He suspended 29 players for a playoff game last season and lost by a point. He benched quarterback Cardale Jones earlier this season.

But beyond the basic rules, Ginn individualizes his teachings. He often brings a medicine bag and a stethoscope to school, and he “treats” each of his patients/players one by one, giving them Lifesavers candy as “medicine.”

“I’m the doctor,” he said. “The doctor of love. I wake up counseling. I’ve got 300 patients here. I’ve got to operate every day. My emergency room is always open.”

Ginn learned this approach here, where he played for Glenville and worked as a security guard before he opened the academy. At 19, his mother died, and his landlord raised his rent by $10. This infuriated Ginn until he realized the man had done so because his wife would wash Ginn’s clothes, cook his meals, fill his refrigerator with food.

Right then, Ginn decided he would spend his life giving back to the community that raised him. He also learned that trust builds loyalty.

Just ask Tony Overton. He grew up near the school and played football for Ginn when a city championship marked the highest expectation. When his father fell ill, Ginn stepped in, and now, Overton said, they are like Joe and Jay Paterno.

“He had bigger visions for us than we had for ourselves,” said Overton, now the offensive coordinator. “What you’re seeing now is a dream that started 30 years ago.”

This year’s team started slowly, losing their first game and falling behind by two scores in each of their next two contests. Each quarter proved its own adventure, but in each game after the first, Glenville won.

Each time, Ginn gave a more rousing pregame speech than the one before. He referenced President Barack Obama, told them this was a year for change. Before the state semifinal, he spoke about leaning forward, like a sprinter, at the finish.

They triumphed in that game, too, accomplishing something no other metro public school had done. To Elliott, the why was simple. Other schools, he said, did not have Ginn.

“You heard of the Miracle on 34th Street?” asked Ivory Albert, an assistant coach known as Ace. “Well, this is the miracle on 113th Street. And it’s real.”

For a struggling community, the football team presents a welcome reprieve, a focal point for progress. Like “you’re walking around in a fog of excitement,” said Jacqueline Bell, the principal at Glenville.

Everyone pitched in. Donte Whitner, an alumnus who plays for the Buffalo Bills, purchased cleats. Someone else donated temporary lighting for the practice field, and before that, parents parked their cars and turned their headlights on. For lifers like Bell and Overton, congratulations have poured in, dozens of letters, e-mail messages and phone calls. Overton has to remind them that the real success came long before, in the players who did not succumb to the dangers that surround them.

Parrish calls Ginn “Mr. Cleveland” and “the most visible person” in the city besides the basketball star LeBron James. But Ginn says this is not about him, even if everyone else disagrees.

He says this is about the mission, the process, the children who have each taken “a little piece” of him, until he feels like “one of those patched-up leather coats, pieces of kids all over me.”

Jones once thought people only made history when they died. But through this team and the history being created, Ginn’s lessons have been reinforced.

“They get it now,” said Michael Ruff, the executive director of the Ted Ginn Foundation. “Most of them have only seen success on television, or read about it. Now, they’re part of it, part of history.”

Helping every youth in need he meets is Ginn Sr.'s mission

Glenville coach’s best victories come off field

Bob Fortuna

December 4, 2009


Ted Ginn Sr. doing what he does a lot, giving advice and direction to a student. This day it happened to be in Ginn Academy, but he often does it outside of the school. - (Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer)

Glenville football coach Ted Ginn Sr. gets about five hours of sleep a night but even when he sleeps, one eye seemingly is open.

It's not endless hours of game film and visions of X's and O's that make him restless. Rather, off-the-field concerns with troubled youth, including frequent middle-of-the-night calls, and not just from his football players.

Like the 3 a.m. call Olivia Farr made on a spring Wednesday more than 10 years ago. Her granddaughter, Sune' Stamper, had run away from home.

"I felt my grandma was too strict so I got mad, packed a bag and left," said Stamper, a Glenville junior at the time and a member of the Ginn-coached girls track team.

Ginn knew where to go, driving to the house of one of Stamper's other relatives and simply said, "Get in the car." He wasn't mad and he didn't yell at Stamper on the ride back to her grandma's, but he told her smarter decisions were needed.

A two-hour conversation in grandma's living room among the three followed. Ginn then went home, only to return a few hours later to pick Stamper up for school.

"He was always looking out for me and the others," said Stamper, 26 and an instructor at the John F. Kennedy Recreation Center.


Glenville football coach/mentor/adviser Ted Ginn Sr. watches over the morning assembly at Ginn Academy. - (Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer)

Stamper earned a bachelor's degree in education from Central State, where she ran track.

Ginn's focus never wavers, whether it's the mighty Tarblooders football program as the team prepares for its first-ever appearance in Saturday's state championship game against Hilliard Davidson; directing the growth of his Ginn Academy school for at-risk youth; or serving as deacon or singing in the men's choir at Historic Greater Friendship Baptist Church.

Helping his athletes is part of Ginn's mission -- he wants to save all the troubled children, an obsession that began while growing up in Louisiana with his grandmother Mull Burton.

Lonely childhood in Cleveland

Ginn was born in Louisiana. His parents moved to Cleveland when he was a toddler, but he soon returned to live with his grandmother after his mom and dad separated. At age 11, his mother, Lear Ginn, got custody and he moved back to Cleveland.

"My grandma died of a broken heart not even a year after I moved away because she never got over the fact I had to leave," Ginn said. "My mom died when I was 19 and I believe she, too, died of a broken heart because she never got over my grandmother's passing.

"I had two half-brothers but I was basically an only child so I was by myself after that. Loneliness is a horrible feeling, one I don't ever want any child to feel."

Ted and his wife, Jeanette, met in high school and have been together 35 years. They claim they can't remember the year they were married.

He never turns down a kid in need

Shaunte' (Berry) Jackson was lonely as a Glenville junior in the mid-1990s, living with her drug-addicted mom and alcoholic grandparents. Nobody was allowed at the house and she and her six siblings weren't permitted to visit friends. Jackson took out her anger by getting into fights.

Jackson was a track teammate and friend of Ginn's daughter, Tiffany, and often found refuge sneaking to the Ginn home. She was on the verge of being thrown out of the house because of continual fighting with her mother.

"Ginn talked to my mom and defended me," said Jackson, now 31 and married with two children. She is a teacher's assistant, assistant volleyball coach and head cheerleading adviser at Glenville while working toward a bachelor's degree in physical education at Cleveland State. "Ted got a hold of me and turned my focus to track, which helped turn me in the right direction."

Said Ginn, "Every kid has a story. If you don't listen to their story, you can never help them."

Ginn is a good listener and he relates well to both boys and girls. Besides daughter Tiffany, there's son Ted Jr., a former Glenville/Ohio State standout now playing wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins.

The elder Ginn listened intently to Steven Hryb when he met him seven years ago while watching his older brother compete in a track meet for Kenston.

Hryb's hobby is photography and the conversation got deeper while showing Ginn some pictures he shot of Ginn's son from Ohio State games.

Ginn, however, sensed something was wrong. He thought Hryb lacked confidence. Despite the fact that Hryb competed in cross country, basketball and baseball, people were always telling him what he could and could not do, and he found it discouraging.

Two years later, Hryb bumped into Ginn outside a Bureau of Motor Vehicles office after just receiving his driver's license. They recognized each another and Ginn invited Hryb to his house in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood, where they spent two hours on the back porch that afternoon.

" 'Uncle Ginn' told me nobody should put limitations on anyone," Hryb said. "He told me to decide what I want to do and go for it."

Hryb, now a junior sports-management major at Ohio University, will be interning at Rosenhaus Sports Management this summer.

Sherrae M. Hayes could always run fast, but when she met Ginn, he taught her how to run far.

Hayes was a standout sprinter at Wilbur Wright Middle School before competing for Glenville's track team as a freshman.

Ginn had her compete in the 3,200-meter run, a long distance event, during her first high school indoor meet. Hayes wondered what was going on but never questioned the decision.

"Ginn just told me to finish the race and I did," said Hayes, a 2004 Glenville graduate. "I finished every race I ran for that man and ended up being a pretty decent middle and long distance runner."

Hayes was valedictorian at Glenville and Tennessee State, where she got a bachelor's degree in speech communications. She will have her master's degree in Africana studies from New York University by the end of the month and is applying to Northwestern, Penn, Harvard and Yale graduate schools for a dual doctorate in African-American studies and communications.

Hayes' experiences as a runner come in handy when she becomes overwhelmed.

"I still can hear Ginn yelling, 'Finish, finish, finish,' " said Hayes, who wants to be a professor.

No price tag for helping others


Ted Ginn Sr. talks with Ginn Academy senior Devon Hall on Nov. 2. Ginn’s reach beyond the football field to the students and community is emblematic of “The Dream of Change” poster. - (Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer)

Contrary to what some believe, money has never been important to Ginn and it irritates Demetrius Davis when outsiders look at his friend/mentor as a money machine.

"Everyone wants to read Ted's bank account and not pay attention to the man and his vision," said Davis, a former Tarblooders safety/tailback and now a special-education teacher at Collinwood. "Heck, he coached the first five years without getting a paycheck.

"He told me 25 years ago he was going to have his own school someday. If that's not vision, what is?"

Even people who've known Ginn for a long time learn something new every day.

Theo Washington and Ginn have been friends for 38 years and last spring were in a clothing store in Mayfield Heights. They noticed a young man from Euclid trying on a suit for his prom, only his mom couldn't afford it.

Ginn told him to get the suit and not worry about it, the bill was covered.

"When the kid asked how he could thank him, Ted told him to send him an invitation to his high school graduation," said Washington. "The kid went one better. He also sent Ted a picture from his prom."

Ginn's goal is to save all the children but he knows he's not perfect. He has a hard time saying no and feels he gives people too many second, third and fourth chances.

He takes setbacks personally and has had more than his share recently involving former players.

Lamontios Bentley was 24 when he was run over and killed in September during a drug deal. In August, Ryan Driggins, 20, was sentenced to 38 years to life in prison for murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary and gun charges.

And budding talent Anthony Gordon was 16 when he was shot and killed in 2006.

"Ted tells all the kids this is probably the last place they're going to be where they can get a chance over and over again," said Ginn's longtime friend and volunteer coach Tony Fox. "He tells them when they get out in the world, their first mistake could be their last."

Ginn Academy senior Devon Hall said he was going down a path similar to Driggins and made a terrible mistake two years ago before Ginn stepped in.

Hall was looking at an eight-year prison sentence for gun possession during a robbery. Hall's dad, Victor Freeman, played for Ginn and called his former coach.

"Mr. Ginn wrote a letter on my behalf to the judge," Hall said. "The judge then gave the letter to the magistrate and I was given six years probation."

Hall, who entered Ginn Academy as a sophomore, is getting good grades, works at a neighborhood restaurant and plans to study criminal justice/political science at Clark Atlanta University with aspirations of being a lawyer.

"We tell Ted he can't save everybody but he feels it's his responsibility," said Glenville graduate and offensive coordinator Tony Overton. "I told him one time to take a break, just relax.

"He said the children will be neglected if he relaxes."