By Marty Kirkland
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July 28, 2009 11:29 pm
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Most college students could always use a few more bucks toward their education.
Thanks to a local community group, Alex Burse will have $1,000 more to help him when he begins life as a student-athlete at Shorter College in a few days.
Burse, who started on the Dalton High football team�s offensive line the past two seasons, was the second recipient of Concerned Citizens of Dalton�s Andre Johnson Scholarship Award. He was presented with the award � a check is on its way to Shorter � during a ceremony on Tuesday night at the Dalton Community Center, where Burse said he spent plenty of summer days hanging out and participating in camps while growing up.
�I like having the feeling of having the community behind me, pushing me to succeed,� Burse said. �Everywhere I go people are cheering for me, telling me they want me to succeed and do good.�
The award is in honor of Johnson, who was shot and killed on May 28, 2007, days before the end of his junior year at Dalton High, where he was a standout defensive lineman for the Catamounts. Burse, who was a year behind Johnson in school, remembered learning plenty about the game from his older teammate.
�You can watch his highlight film and see he went hard every play,� Burse said. �Every time the whistle blew, he was going to go hard.�
Burse signed a partial athletic scholarship four months ago with Shorter, an NAIA school that competes in the Mid-South Conference. He said he�ll spend his freshman year working hard in the classroom in hopes of adding the state�s HOPE scholarship to his list of grants for the future, but he knows the Johnson Scholarship will also be a big help.
The 6-foot-1-inch, 285-pound Burse has spent much of his summer in physical training to prepare for the jump into a deeper talent pool in college, but he�s also quickly discovering the other half of life as a student-athlete. He�s often been busy filling out paperwork and getting things in place so he�ll be ready when football players report to campus next Wednesday, a day before they have their first practice.
Not surprisingly, anticipation of the hectic schedule and new challenges that will soon occupy his days has given Burse � who said he�ll study sports management at Shorter � some jitters about what�s ahead.
But those tasks are part of the opportunity Burse worked toward in his time at Dalton. Cats coach Adam Winegarden, who took over the team prior to Burse�s senior season, saw that firsthand.
�You have a lot of people who may want to make excuses about certain circumstances, why they can�t get something done. That wasn�t him,� said Winegarden, who recalled Burse always being ready to go when the coach picked him up for early morning workouts during the winter. �No matter what adversity he had or faced, he made it happen, and that was just through desire and hard work.�
Dalton High athletic director Ronnie McClurg, who led the football program during Burse�s sophomore and junior seasons, was also happy to see the award come to his former player.
�It�s kind of a dream come true for him,� McClurg said. �When he came to Dalton High, he talked about playing at the next level and he knew what it was going to take for him to get to the next level. He worked extremely hard and has been very, very dedicated in getting himself to where he could play at the next level.�
Concerned Citizens of Dalton president Horace Moore said the group was formed about a year before Johnson�s death, but the incident � gang-related convictions were handed down to those charged in the Memorial Day shooting � spurred CCOD members to become more active.
�When Andre got killed, we went in and tried to pull all the kids together and keep them all from getting in trouble,� Moore said. �And that was the purpose of the Concerned Citizens, to motivate and help the kids and try to encourage them to go on to school and be something. We felt that was needed.�
The activities of the group have been as grassroots as a Saturday cookout at the Dalton Community Center that Moore calls the Hot Dog Rodeo. Local business owner Randy Beckler began rewarding children involved at the center $10 for each �A� in a core class on their report card. And CCOD also feeds participants during local Special Olympics, Moore said.
But the scholarship is one of the most visible activities for the group. Blane Bradford, a former Dalton football player whom Moore called Johnson�s �best friend,� was the recipient of last year�s scholarship, which is financed by the group�s fundraisers, including barbecue sales and an annual banquet.
�One day,� Moore said, �somebody�s going to come back and say �If it hadn�t have been for them, I wouldn�t have made it. They helped me, so I�m coming back to put back.��
CCOD asks for suggestions from the community, including area coaches, while trying to find a worthy college-bound athlete from either Christian Heritage, Dalton, Northwest Whitfield or Southeast, Moore said. And in addition to the larger scholarship, Moore said the group tries to provide a smaller scholarship to a student at each of the other schools.
�I believe if you take from the community,� Moore said, �you have to give back.�
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