If you asked Ashton Grant ’19 what his dream job was a few months ago, he’d never have guessed he would be living it. Grant, who was named the first- ever recipient of the NFL Cleveland Browns’ Bill Willis Coaching Fellowship, is spending the 2020 season working with and learning from Cleveland’s coaching staff. This summer, he participated in the Browns’ off-season program that provided six coaches at various levels the opportunity to gain experience at the NFL level with the hope of ultimately landing full-time positions with the league.
“I’m most excited to be around coaches who have dedicated their lives to this profession and who do their jobs at the highest level possible,” said Grant. “I am a firm believer in the thought that who you spend your time with is who you’ll become. I am excited to adopt their habits, their unique ways of teaching, their thought processes, attention to detail, and everything else that comes with the profession. I also hope to create and maintain lifelong relationships with as many people as I can.”
After finishing his football career at Assumption in 2017 where he was a standout wide receiver and captain, Grant participated in training camps with the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and Chicago Bears, and ultimately played in the Alliance of American Football with the Salt Lake Stallions. His playing career would eventually inspire him to pursue a different path, and he decided to return to Assumption to finish his sociology degree.
“I always knew that I was going to finish my degree at Assumption regardless of what happened with my playing career,” he said. “I wanted to be able to finish what I started. I also made a promise to my mother that I would get my degree; it was a non-negotiable deal we made when I started getting recruited.”
In fact, Grant said that all of his experiences at Assumption tied into preparing him for this role, giving him confidence to dream big, come out of his shell, and prioritize tasks. “Being a student-athlete also taught me that there is no one person bigger than the team, so I plan on taking that mindset with me to Cleveland, and I’ll be willing to do whatever is asked of me to better the team as a whole.”
Grant, who last season served as a quality control coach at the College of the Holy Cross, considers it an incredible honor and privilege to be mentioned in the same sentence with a person of Bill Willis’s courage and prestige, as he was one of the first players who broke the color barrier in professional football.
“I have always known that I wanted to be around the game of football for my entire life, but I had no idea that my path would bring me here,” he said.
