Value education, work hard and persevere, player urges Mahoning grads

June 7, 2014 at 12:02a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Commencement at Mahoning County High School

A former Youngstown State University football player who joined the Cleveland Browns last year told 20 graduates of the Mahoning County High School Class of 2014 that they need to focus on education, hard work and perseverance.

“Education will take me further than football will,” Jamaine Cook told the graduates Friday.

Cook is three courses away from completing his bachelor’s degree in accounting at YSU and aspires to be a certified public accountant.

Cook, who grew up in poverty in Cleveland, said his football accomplishments would not have been possible without his high-school and college educational experiences.

A Browns running back last season, Cook said he was released from the team two weeks ago but could be reinstated.

“A degree is something they can’t take away from you. They can take football away from you,” he said. “Any job you get nowadays, you need that degree. ... That degree is for a lifetime,” he added.

“I was never the biggest, fastest or strongest, but I knew how to work hard” to achieve success on the football field, he said at the high school’s fifth commencement.

“Keep fighting. Keep pushing. Just because one train passes you by doesn’t mean another isn’t coming,” he told the graduates.

With 4,052 rushing yards, Cook was second in YSU history and was named the university’s male scholar athlete of the year in 2011-12.

Another speaker was Daymond Stoffer, who graduated in 2012 from MCHS and will complete barber school in September at Raphael’s Barber Academy in Niles.

“This is not the end. It’s just the beginning step,” in a journey through life, he said of the graduation ceremony.

Stoffer said his goal is to become a barbershop owner.

Founded in 2008, MCHS is a tuition-free public community school operated jointly by the county’s juvenile court and educational service center.

Its mission is to provide a structured setting with small classes and individualized attention to help students overcoming personal and academic challenges. The school is designated by the state as a dropout recovery and prevention program.

The school moved in April from the former Sheridan Elementary School on the South Side, which it outgrew, to the former P. Ross Berry Middle School on the East Side, where Friday’s commencement ceremony was conducted.