Corvallis Gazette-Times

Jared Cornell always envisioned himself as a teacher.

He just never anticipated he’d be accountable for about 330 students, ranging in age from kindergarten to high school, or that his classroom would be larger than many elementary schools.

The former starting right guard on Oregon State’s 2001 Fiesta Bowl championship football team is midway through his third month as the Director of Operations of the Boys & Girls Club of Corvallis. He supervises a staff of 11 and oversees the club’s gym and recreation room activities, the elementary and middle school study lounges, teen center, technology center and art center.

“I like working with kids, and being able to mold character development, leadership skills and life skills,” he said last week during an interview in his office during a rare quiet moment at the club, located next to Linus Pauling Middle School and the Osborn Aquatic Center in northwest Corvallis.

“It can range from teaching personal boundaries to a kindergartner who pokes some other kids, to working with high schoolers about how they’re talking to other people,” and anything inbetween. “It’s a pretty broad range, but I like it a lot.”

It’s a job he never anticipated doing five years ago after graduating from OSU with degrees in Health Promotion and Education and Health Care Administration. Cornell student-taught in Salem, and then worked off an on at the Children’s Farm Home before starting his current position this past Halloween.

“I was looking for a new challenge because I’d hit my ceiling” at the Farm Home, he said.

“And while getting my master’s, I found out that I didn’t really know if teaching was for me.”

So he kept his eyes open. His current job opened when predecessor Jason Yutzie left to become the CEO at the Boys & Girls Club of Lebanon.

“The job description came out and I said, ‘That sounds like a lot of fun.’ I like working with kids, and I love athletics. I like management and administration, putting together programs and watching them run.

“I thought, ‘I can do that and still be involved with young minds.’ ”

Cornell has trimmed down somewhat from college, when he was 6-foot-3 and about 320 pounds, and these days he spends his time counselling and teaching, not pancaking anyone who gets in his way. But he still cuts an imposing, formidable figure and generally has no trouble getting the attention from kids about one-fourth his size.

“It’s hard not to be intimidating,” he said, laughing. “I’ll be out there and see someone doing something they know they’re not supposed to be doing; I’ll say, “Hey!” and they’ll just freeze.”

His association with the Beavers gives him credibility and celebrity.

“When anybody from Oregon State comes in here, it’s just like white on rice, the kids go ‘Beavers! Beavers!’ they just go crazy,” he said. “Most of them are too young to remember the Fiesta Bowl, which is depressing, but they love that I played football for the Beavers.

“You tell them you played in a bowl game and beat Notre Dame ... I had to limit it to two autographs a day for the first month, because I constantly had kids banging on my door. I was like, ‘Look, I should be paying you for this, because you’re not going to get anything out of it.’ ”

Cornell hopes to parlay that OSU connection into further interaction between the school and the club. The men’s golf team helped chaperone a middle school dance at the club; members of ROTC and the men’s rugby team have also volunteered.

Cornell has a 19-month old daughter and realizes that parents, not athletes, must be their children’s primary role model. But he also knows that kids look up to athletes, particularly in a college town such as Corvallis.

“The thing that most athletes have to understand is whether they want to be or not, they are role models,” Cornell said. “Unless they make an effort to get involved in their community or do good works, the only time you’re ever going to hear about them is when they do something wrong.

“I think it would be cool to get more student-athletes in here. It’s a win-win situation. They’re going to get a lot out of it and the kids are too. It could be really positive in this community.

“You have to make an effort to do the right thing, put your face out there, and care. That’s something I learned early on.”

Cornell’s parents are teachers and coaches in The Dalles; they emphasized public service and giving back to their close-knit community. As a child, Jared and his younger brother Anthony regularly visited an area nursing home after church on Sundays.

“That can be kind of daunting and depressing,” he said. “But after a while we really looked forward to it. We’d play checkers, do puzzles, and bingo ... it seems kind of dorky but they really loved having us there.

“We always sponsored a family for Christmas. There was a sense of, ‘We’re lucky to have what we have and we need to share that with other people.’ That’s an important part of a community.”

At a glance

WHO: Jared Cornell

WHAT: Director of Operations, Boys & Girls Club of Corvallis

AGE: 28.

FAMILY: Wife Adria, daughter Reghan (19 months). A younger brother, Bryant, will be a sophomore on the Oregon State football team in 2006.

EDUCATION: Graduated from OSU with a BS in Health Promotion and Education and Health Care Administration in 2001, and with an ME in education in 2003.

QUOTE: “The thing that drove me nuts with classrooms teaching is that I had to be (there) all day long, and the kids had to be there. One of the things I enjoy about here is, you see kids get off the bus and they come running in here with big old smiles, huge grins ear to ear. They love being here. That’s what I appreciate,” — Jared Cornell.