Back in 2007, while a member of the Cleveland Browns, wide receiver Braylon Edwards promised to award 100 scholarships of $10,000 each to area students through his Advance 100 program.
Since then, Edwards has made headlines mostly for his lapses -- drops on the field and bad behavior off of it. He was arrested for misdemeanor assault in 2009 and drunken driving in 2010. He recently referred to himself as "the second most hated man in Cleveland," behind LeBron James.
Now a top target for the Jets, not many remember Braylon's pledge as a Brown.
But Edwards did.
"Whatever I choose to start I choose to finish," Edwards said during an interview with Cleveland.com. "We started it here. It didn't matter that I got traded. I committed to the kids in 2007 and here we are in 2011 and I'm still committed."
The students at the time were eighth graders. Over 1,100 applied, the list was narrowed down to 175 finalists, and then the winners were chosen by Edwards' mother, Malesa Prater, who is the head of Edwards' foundation in Detroit.
This week, Edwards send 100 Cleveland kids to college at a cost of roughly $1 million.
This isn't some revisionist damage-control, either. Edwards has raised roughly $500,000 in endowed scholarships at Michigan, where he starred as a wide receiver. He's one of the brightest stars in the Michigan fundraising community.
So what will Edwards' legacy be? To many Browns fans, it will be one of unfulfilled promise. But to more than a few families, it will be one of promises kept.
