Tiger Woods Foundation plays special role in student's life
BETHESDA, Md. — Growing up, Adrian Arias didn’t have a vision beyond college.
Arias’ parents attended college in the Dominican Republic then later moved to Washington. So they couldn’t advise from experience what their son should pursue after he graduated from high school.
But Arias’ goals for the future changed when he received a scholarship from the Tiger Woods Foundation during his senior year of high school.
With the foundation’s support, Arias set out and accomplished his goal to graduate from Ohio Northern University with a GPA above 3.5 while becoming the first member of his family to earn a degree in the U.S.
He is one of more than 150,000 students who have received support from the Tiger Woods Foundation, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in September.
“The Tiger Woods Foundation has been more so like a family to me,” Arias said. “They’ve been my No. 1 supporters since I went to college. I had kind of a group of individuals who were more like a backbone, who could pick me up and take me further into the future.”
The Tiger Woods Foundation offers scholarships, after-school care, college preparation, job networking and more to students who are in need. The scholarship is named after Woods’ father, Earl.
Each scholarship recipient is assigned a mentor, and in the spring before attending college, Arias’ mentor, Tony Kim, set strict guidelines for his protégé. Kim told Arias he had to study in the library at least two hours every day and he must graduate with a GPA above 3.5., academic goals that Arias had never been exposed to before.
Though the transition was tough for Arias, he kept Kim’s demands in the back of his mind whenever he got distracted. He didn’t want to let down his mentor.
Arias, 24, will enter his third year at Claude W. Pettit College of Law at Ohio Northern this fall. He’s the first member of his family to attend graduate school.
Before joining the Tiger Woods Foundation, he had no clue where he’d be at this point in his life.
“I didn’t want to be another individual in kind of a poor community who doesn’t go anywhere from there,” Arias said. “Coming from a family where there’s not much education, it was difficult because I had to do everything on my own. Having [Kim] there yelling at me and pushing me helped me reach those goals even faster.”
Arias ate lunch with Woods on Wednesday at Congressional Country Club, where the Quicken Loans National will take place this week. Woods is the host of the tournament, which benefits his foundation.
Arias was eager to show Woods photos of the time he visited the Old Course in St. Andrews in Scotland, the birthplace of golf, where Woods won the British Open in 2000 and 2005.
Though Woods won’t compete in his own event this week due to a lower back injury and hasn’t won a major golf tournament since 2008, he’s been helping others’ dreams come alive for nearly 20 years off the course.
“Those are special kids,” Woods said. “You look at these kids and watch them speak and think, ‘Holy cow, it's pretty incredible.’ For them to have the mentors they've had and for them to feel like they're part of a family, part of a unit, it means everything. ...
“A lot of them are from socioeconomic backgrounds that aren't really the best, but I think that's what we're trying to explain to people. So many kids are under-served and it's our duty to fix that.”
PHOTOS: TIGER'S VICTORIES ON PGA TOUR