Former Carver football player Glenn Ford thriving with i-DareU

Columbus native and former Carver Tiger Glenn Ford remembers when his football training program started falling into place.

It was 2006. Ford, who played defensive back at Georgia in the mid-1990s, began working with Shaquille Wiggins, a young cornerback from Tyrone. Ford realized through Wiggins that training players was something he felt inspired to do. He soon also had Wiggins to thank for what to call his new venture.

“We were at Westlake Field, and it was cold,” Ford said. “We were out at practice, and Shaq drew like a fake line in front of the guy he was guarding. He was like, ‘Man, I dare you to cross this line.’ We looked at each other like, ‘That’s the name.’”

Since that time, Ford’s i-DareU program has taken off. Operating out of Atlanta, it has been rated the No. 1 training program in the country by ESPN and Rivals, with the numbers regarding the talent speaking for themselves.

Twenty-two players who worked within the program signed with FBS schools in February 2017, with several other participants signing with smaller colleges. This adds to the long list of i-DareU alumni who have gone on to the collegiate ranks, with people such as Wiggins, who is at Louisville after a stint at Georgia, along with Alabama’s Reuben Foster and Dallas Warmack and Georgia’s Davin Bellamy.

In Ford’s opinion, the program’s growing list of college football players demonstrates what sets the program apart from so many others.

“With the training and the muscle memory with the way we train for three days a week for 26 weeks, you should be different,” Ford said. “It’s just the way we do it. We train different, and we prepare for this thing different. When a lot of folks are off partying, our kids are working. When they’re in the bed asleep, our kids are working.”

The offseason training Ford and the program’s other coaches put the players through is substantial, but it’s not the only workload those who sign up are taking on.

There is a mentorship element that has been set up, and it has been partnered with the Boy Scouts of America. The program also includes an extensive ACT and SAT training course, which runs three hours every Sunday for the six weeks leading up to the exam date. The staff gives the players “scorecards” that factors in each person’s transcript, weighted GPA and cumulative GPA in order to see how far they must come to play collegiately.

In addition, i-DareU has created a juvenile direction initiative to get young men who have found themselves in trouble back on the right path. The program has also recently devoted time for anger management lessons, to teach players how to handle themselves when it comes to off-the-field life.

These characteristics are what comprehensively sets the program apart from other football training options across the country.

“I grew up on (the rule) if I didn’t get my grades, nothing else was going to come to pass as far as what I wanted from an athletic standpoint,” said i-DareU vice chairman Herman Lewis, whose mother is a retired school teacher from the Muscogee County school district. “It means a lot, for the kids to put in the time with the SAT and ACT preparation we provide for them. That’s the other pieces of the puzzle they have to conquer in order for everything else to come into play.”

Lewis has known Ford since the two were children in Columbus. Lewis played football alongside Ford while at Carver before continuing his career at Wake Forest. He is now a vice president at PNC Bank.

When Ford first approached Lewis about joining the i-DareU team, Lewis said he had to take his due diligence in making the decision. However, it didn’t take him long to come to a conclusion.

“These kids love this program,” Lewis said. “They love coach Ford and they know those coaches have their best interest at heart. When these kids graduate from high school, go to college and graduate from college, if it had not been for i-DareU, you always have to ask the question, ‘Where would these kids be?’”

What furthers the connection for many players with Ford and the staff is its longevity. Through i-DareU’s Fifth Quarter initiative, Ford and others stay in touch with the young men after they leave for college, often calling or even visiting them on campus to make sure their transitions are going smoothly.

“They continue to be part of the family,” Lewis said. “The day is going to come when football is going to be gone. This is bigger than football.”

Both men credited longtime Carver head coach Wallace Davis as an inspiration for their work within the program. They expressed the idea that Davis was their i-DareU when it came to making them better and helping them find college scholarships, saying they knew others outside the Tigers program weren’t so lucky.

The two have their sights on one day expanding i-DareU to Columbus, although that process hasn’t come together yet. In the meantime, Ford, Lewis and the others who run the program will continue their efforts to help high school players earn athletic scholarships and go to college for free.

“It’s the ultimate feeling,” Ford said. “When you get a chance to see kids do that and see their parents, it means everything. You can’t pay for that feeling that you get when you see a kid sign for that free education that’s going to change his life forever.”

This story was originally published February 26, 2017 at 9:48 AM with the headline "Former Carver football player Glenn Ford thriving with i-DareU."