He’ll chase the NFL after school, but this Gamecock has a more noble goal
Like almost any college football player, A.J. Turner will take his shot at the NFL Draft process.
Then he’s got a goal that’s far more noble.
Turner finished up his academic career at South Carolina in December. At that point he was looking at agents, thinking about training and getting to the school’s NFL Pro Day to show off his skills. If that doesn’t come together, or even if it does, he’s got a passion that he hopes at some point will take his focus.
“I want to start my own charity, my own orphanage,” Turner said. ”It has always been my dream — help out other kids who don’t have that same opportunity. Just speaking from experience.”
Turner declined to detail much of the specifics about what his own experience entailed, but he said this dream came from an understanding of being put in a difficult position as a child.
“My experience in life, just not really growing up having a lot of stuff and being in situations that kids shouldn’t be in,” Turner said. “It’s not fair for kids to be in those kinds of situations, so I want to help out in that way.”
Turner’s career in Columbia has been an interesting one to say the least. He was a part of Steve Spurrier’s final recruiting class, and at a slight 5-foot-10, 175 pounds was thrust into being the starting tailback for Will Muschamp’s first team.
He saw Rico Dowdle surpass him by the end of that year, managed to be the team’s top rusher the next year and as a redshirt junior battled a concussion and even chipped in on defense late in the season when injuries devastated the USC secondary.
His senior year was fraught as well. He started out as a corner, a role he hardly played. He was an ace special-teamer when healthy, missed much of the year with a hamstring issue and finally returned for the season finale when he got his first few carries.
“This season, it was hard for me,” Turner said. “It was frustrating, just as far as a lot of injuries going on, me not being on the field a lot. So it was really frustrating for me this year but, I mean, on to the next.”
He closed out with 1,336 career yards, putting him at 28th in program history.
As he was set to get his degree, he ended up directing credit, not to coaches, but to those who helped him on the academic side. His hope down the road is to help young people in a non-football sense, and he gave thanks to those who helped him reach that academic plateau.
“Definitely took a lot of hard work, dedication for people to really put me on track when I needed to,” Turner said. “Because there’s been times that I just didn’t feel like doing it, but I had to push through and those people helped me.”
This story was originally published January 19, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "He’ll chase the NFL after school, but this Gamecock has a more noble goal."
