First Tee Scholars Program just start of diversity efforts
It was a last-minute favor.
After the scheduled speaker suffered a heart attack, Georgetown College President William H. Crouch Jr. was asked to step in at The First Tee's 2001 annual meeting in Florida.
Crouch said he didn't know anything about The First Tee, which uses golf to teach life and leadership skills to school-age children of all backgrounds.
"I was just helping a friend out," he said.
But he found himself unexpectedly moved by the event's articulate high school student speaker, Steven Outlaw of East Chicago, Ind. When it was his turn to speak, Crouch put aside his prepared remarks and offered Outlaw a scholarship.
He then offered a second scholarship to another First Tee student -- and pledged to find other colleges and universities to do the same.
Six years later, The First Tee Scholars Program has spread to 28 colleges around the country -- including the Kentucky Community and Technical College System -- and has helped 122 students.
And it has helped Georgetown -- a historically white Christian college with Baptist ties -- move closer to its goal of becoming more racially diverse.
As they prepare to graduate tomorrow, Outlaw and classmate Chris Hawkins, both African Americans, say First Tee and Georgetown have changed their lives.
This from Nancy Rodriguez at the Courier-Journal.
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