Classroom Champions Mentors from the Buffalo Bills!
This year we’re excited to announce that we’ve got three players from the Buffalo Bills that will mentor schools in the Western New York Buffalo region!
This is our fourth year partnering with the Buffalo Bills to provide programming! These elite athletes take time out of their busy season schedule to create mentorship videos on 4 lessons: Goal setting, Emotions, Community, and Perseverance.
At Classroom Champions, we’re committed to providing a diverse set of mentors that ensures each students sees themselves represented. By teaming up with the Buffalo Bills and other elite athletes, we can help all kids see that anything is possible .
Let’s meet our mentors!
Dion is going into his fourth year with the Buffalo Bills as an Offensive Tackle. You can track him on the field with his number 73 on his jersey, wearing this because two other football players from Rahway, New Jersey wore number 71 (Olsen Pierre) and number 72 (Antonio Garay).
Dion started his football career in his hometown of Rahway, New Jersey before playing at Temple University from 2103–2016. Dion earned First Team All-American honors after his senior year having played 41 of 44 career games.
Dion is the self-proclaimed Shnow Man — a term he used in high school to display his oversized personality. More words of wisdom from Dion: “I always set my goals high.”
Reid Ferguson was signed by the Buffalo Bills as an undrafted free agent on May 2, 2016, and became part of the practice squad later that year. After a year of hard work, Reid became the starting long snapper for the Bills in 2017. Reid played in all 16 games that season and helped the Bills reach the NFL Playoffs. Reid again played all 16 games during the 2018 season and in January 2019, he signed a three-year contract extension with the Bills through the 2021 season.
Reid first started playing football in Buford, Georgia, and was ranked the #2 long snapper in that nation during his senior year in high school. Reid continued playing at Louisiana State University, where he played all 51 games for four years and earned first-team All-American honors.
Reid has a dog named Buck- he’s a golden doodle! Words of wisdom from Reid: “I’m still not perfect. You always have to work to be perfect. There’s always something to improve on.”
Quinton Jefferson admitted one of the reasons why he was attracted to Buffalo was because he knew he would have several opportunities to make an impact on the game at multiple positions and schemes. “It’s one of the things literally almost since high school, I literally played every position,” Jefferson explained. “People ask what I played on the d-line and I’d just say d-line. I take pride in trying to learn the whole defense, the whole front.”
Quinton was born in Pittsburgh, PA, and played both football and basketball at Woodland Hills High School. He graduated in 2015 from University of Maryland with a degree in family science.
You can find Quinton by his number 90 on his jersey on the field! Quinton Jefferson believes that “the sky is the limit.” So Dream Big Champions!
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A special thank you to the Buffalo Bills Foundation, Delaware North, and National Grid for helping make all of this possible.
