Student-Athletes

Becoming a role model — on the field and off

When Husky Football player Keishawn Bierria was just eight years old, his dad died of cancer. His mom struggled with grief and lost custody of her four kids to Keishawn’s grandparents. Planning for a college education wasn’t high on the list of family concerns.

“All we wanted to do was play sports,” the linebacker says. “Then, when Division I colleges started talking to my older brother and other high school athletes, they couldn’t accept offers because their grades didn’t qualify.”

Keishawn took notice and earned straight-As his senior year, eager to keep up his academic success when he came to Washington. He entered the accelerated LEAP program the summer before his freshman year — “the hardest course I ever took in college”.

Diagnosed with a learning disability at the UW, Keishawn worked with a specialist throughout his four years. Tutors helped him with tough courses like statistics, and he also took advantage of the UW writing center for help with papers. A study-abroad trip to Hawaii to study indigenous populations enriched his education.

“It was hard to fail with so much support,” he says.

Keishawn did more than simply not fail. He earned the team’s Academic Achievement Award, along with receiving the Guy Flaherty Most Inspirational Award — twice. And he graduated early with not one degree but two, in Sociology and in American Ethnic Studies with an anthropology minor.

“Every year, I took full credits. For the last football season, I was fully enrolled like I was a freshman,” states Keishawn, who hopes to play in the NFL or to become a coach. “It was important to me because I had the support to do it. I had a lot of younger teammates who looked up to me. I could set an example not just on the field but in the classroom. It was the right thing to do.”

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