While it’s important to make a commitment, it’s even more important to keep it, a former Ohio State University standout football player told students at the Flandreau Indian School last week.
For Joel Penton, who played five years with the Buckeyes as a member of three Big 10 and one national championship teams and received the Danny Wueffel Trophy –known as the Humanitarian Heisman, that commitment started when he fell in love with football at 9 years old. He wasn’t coordinated and was chosen third to the last out of 50 kids by the coaches who set up the teams, but a few years later, he decided to become the best football player he could be.
Penton has spoken at more than 500 schools and nearly 1 million people as he travels the country telling his story keeping commitments and standing your ground.
His commitment included forming friendships with other young men who wanted the same thing and wanted to make a mark on their school. But later, one by one, those friends broke the commitment and started drinking in high school, he said. “Before I knew it, I was the only one not going out and getting drunk,” he said. “It seemed like all my friends wanted to do was drink.”

Hard feelings developed and they told him it would be different if they could just see him drink one drink of alcohol. But he wouldn’t because it would get in the way of his commitment.
“All of a sudden as a junior I realized I didn’t have any friends,” he said. The feeling became clearer when as a senior he was selected the winter homecoming king as the person who raised the most money for charity. “I was, I kid you not, booed by the entire student body of my high school. I’ll be honest with you, it was pretty tough.”
Penton said there were a lot of times he felt like breaking his commitment to be the best football player he could be, but he stood his ground. Eventually the head coach of Ohio State University walked into his school and offered him a scholarship to play football.
While he doesn’t dwell on how tough it was to keep his personal commitment, he does think about how grateful he is that he did it. “I don’t need to stand up here and tell you what the right commitments are,” he told the students, adding that they are smart enough to know what is right.
“Your mind is made up and all you do is stand your ground,” he said. “I do want you to know it’s possible to do the right thing.”