Video courtesy of Fort Hays State University

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

FHSU took a chance by giving an injured football player a scholarship to continue his education. For that student, Tré Giles, the opportunity was life-changing.

Giles, 25, has traveled across the world and affected scores of lives, but the college education that made all that possible almost evaporated before he had settled in as a freshman.

Giles came to FHSU on a football scholarship. During football camp, he jumped up and his knee snapped. He tore three major ligaments in his knee, had reconstructive surgery and lost a lot of his muscle mass.

Football was no longer going to be an option.

Giles, a first-generation college student, grew up in Colorado Springs. It was just he and his mom, who worked 12-hour shifts at a local manufacturing plant to make ends meet. He described himself as a “knucklehead” in high school. It was about sports and meeting friends and that was it.

Stuck in Hays

“It honestly felt like I was stuck at Fort Hays out here at Hays,” he said. “I had one friend here that we came to Fort Hays together, but that was about it. It was a fresh new start in a place where everyone looked different than me. They talked different than me. That was the biggest culture shock I ever had in my life.”

Giles said the pace in Hays was a lot slower than back home. To fight boredom, he dug into his studies and looked for outlets to be involved on campus. He joined Black Student Union, the Management and Marketing Association, and Collegiate DECA.

However, without a football scholarship, Giles knew he did not have the money to continue his education.

“I was in the dorms and I remember getting a couple of letters in my mailbox saying I owed some absurd amount of money by this date otherwise you can’t continue your education. In my mind, my mom can’t come up with that kind of money and neither can I, so this was a cool run. I had an injury. I had fun while I was here and did good things and got good grades and got plugged in, but it’s not going to work. I pretty much had given it up.”

A second chance

When then Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Tisa Mason found out Giles might have to leave school because of finances, she approached then-President Edward Hammond about finding scholarship money for Giles to stay.

“Our core values really get down to our personality characteristics of grit and determination, and that’s Tré. He works hard. He is determined. He’s positive. Not only did he come into a caring environment, but you know by his joy, he helps radiate that caring environment for every student faculty and staff that he meets,” Mason said.

She said she knew Giles was going to continue to make an impact on the world.

“I wanted him to enter that world with a Fort Hays degree,” she said.

Giles was working at the FHSU Union when Mason and Hammond approached him.

“They pretty much just looked at me and said ‘We want you to know we have seen your investment in the campus and the groups, so just know you have a Presidential Scholarship. Your financial stuff is taken care of for this year,’ ” he said.

Giles said he broke down and cried.

“That is what kept me in Hays because in that moment, they empowered me to do things while I was here and stay here,” he said. “I developed a sense of loyalty to the community because of that moment.”

A turning point

Although Giles acknowledges there is a valid conversation ongoing in the U.S. about the necessity of students attending college, for him, college was a turning point in his life.

“College was not necessarily about the classes always or the piece of paper you get at the end,” he said. “To me, it was an opportunity to network and meet people. To me, it was an opportunity to get involved in organizations and other countries. Those opportunities would not have been in front of me if I wasn’t in college.

“I got to develop at a rapid pace and I was exposed to things that people from where I am from don’t really get exposed to because of this opportunity,” he said. “That taught me so much. It taught me how to lead people. It also taught me how to follow good leaders. It taught me how to empower others and to be empowered. It gave me a voice, and I realized that my voice means something and, in certain spheres, it is actually worth something. I don’t think I would have learned any of that if I had just gone back home or if I won’t have come to college.”

He said sticking it out in college changed everything.

Giles was a member of the Student Government Association and Global Leadership Project. He served on the board of Jana’s Campaign and worked with the United Nation’s Commission on the Status on Women during his tenure on that board.

During the Trayvon Martin trial, Giles organized a civil rights protest. He said the event was intense. A truck full of men attended the protest and broadcast racial slurs from a megaphone. Despite the tension, the protest was conducted peacefully.

See related story: Group of FHSU students brings injustice to light through protest (VIDEO)

Giles had opportunity to travel to major cities across the United States and complete an internship with the Cancer Society in Kansas City. He spent time in China in an exchange program and volunteered at an orphanage in Guatemala. After graduation, he served in the Peace Corps in Africa.

Mason said if students lives are not changed during their time at FHSU, there has been a failure in the partnership between the student and the university. Helping students build confidence so they interact professionally and socially is important.

“It is more about learning who you are,” Mason said. “You are unlocking that untapped potential, gaining that sense of clarity and confidence about how you interact with other business professionals. …

“When we talk about wanting to have an impact on the world, it is really a broad impact, not only being good but bringing more social capital to our communities and economic prosperity and making Kansans and our families much, much stronger.”

A change for his family

Giles attributed much of  his success to his professors who empowered him to use his voice and be a leader, but also to his mom.

She told him, “Tré, we struggled when you were young and I was younger, but we did everything we could to put you in a position so you wouldn’t have to struggle and you could change the narrative for our family.”

“My mom put in all the groundwork and all the foundation to where all I had to do was step into it and be consistent and show up,” he said.

“We have this saying with me and my mom. We call it, ‘Keep it pushin’. That just means no matter what shows up — the obstacles, the crap and even the triumph and success — no matter what’s in your way — you keep moving forward, you ‘Keep it pushin’.’ ”

When Giles graduated, they both realized the significance of the moment.

“There was that moment that this might change us forever — our whole family dynamic. It is amazing that my kids — her grandkids — will have an even better life than I have because we are taking steps in that direction hopefully for generations to come. I get to be the first catalyst, because of my mom, to change our family.”

Finding faith

Giles also experienced a pivotal change in his spiritual life during college. Giles is now the youth pastor for the CrossCurrernt Ministry at Celebration Community Church in Hays, but he was not a Christian when he entered college.

He began talking to instructor LeeAnn Brown about her Christian faith. Giles’ father was not part of his life growing up, and Braun realized Giles had never had a father figure other than coaches.

At the end of his sophomore year, she introduced him to Dr. Jeffrey Burnett, health and human performance professor and leader of the college Encounter ministry. Giles was skeptical at first. He thought Burnett just wanted to use his influence on campus to bring more students into the ministry.

“For so long, I had seen Christianity as this cookie-cutter, boring thing where people were fake and pathetic, but that was the first time I met a Christian who was real,” Giles said. “He said, ‘Yo, it ain’t no cookie-cutter thing. This is about love. This is about sacrifice. This is about a decision and choice you make every day, and I want to challenge you with that.'”

Burnett described Giles when they first met.

“Tré always had that huge personality that attracted so many to his presence. Now he came from a home which was full of love from a very caring mother but also came with some hurts and instability from others,” Burnett said. “So even though Tré had his huge personality, he was a young man that was searching for a place to belong and really didn’t have a clear direction.”

Giles started going to the Encounter meetings on Wednesday nights.

“After a while, the narrative of Jesus became something I couldn’t live without anymore, and I really believed in it,” Giles said. “It healed me of so much hurt and pain and enabled me to be such a better leader, just leading how I believe Christ leads. I don’t have to say I’m doing it like Christ does. I just demonstrate it.”

Giles continued, “Seeing something real and genuine, it was like ‘I will sacrifice for you and I will love you and I will stop and I will see you and I will support you and I will take your hand and I will walk you through the mud and I will celebrate you when you do good.’ That was Christianity for me, and that is what it is now for me. I cling to it.”

Alone in my hut

Giles said his experience in the Peace Corps solidified his faith. He was posted in Gambia in West Africa in a predominantly Muslim culture. The country is one of the poorest in the world.

He was sent to a village of 2,000 people — the only foreigner and the only Christian in the village.

“It was that time when I sat in my hut every day with no electricity and no running water and I would open my Bible and I would pray and my faith became mine because no one else around me could help me,” he said.

The connection he felt to his Christian faith was enhanced by the beauty he saw in the Muslim faith, he said.

“They sacrificed for each other. They all prayed together. There was so much family. The little they had they would give. There was not a single person who was starving in this village. Everyone took care of everyone,” he said.

Even if he does not move people to Christ, he said he hopes he instills self-dignity in them.

“I take all of these experiences and mash them all together for one thing you hope becomes a message that you hope people want to join and support,” he said. “I am learning now how to use all of these stories and experiences I have had in my short life to impact people.”

Self doubt

Despite being a regular motivational speaker, Giles said his greatest struggle is self-doubt.

“My biggest challenge has always been to be gracious with myself and to believe in myself,” he said. “That is what I care about is encouraging others and teaching them how to believe in themselves. I think that is why it is such a burden on my heart to help other people care for themselves and believe in themselves and to do things because that is my own struggle. I think the thing that burdens [people] the most is the thing that they can impact the best. …

“There is something about seeing someone figure out they are really worth something that helps me understand that I am really worth something.”

Giles is recently engaged and is looking forward to his wedding and someday being a dad. He said his No. 1 goal is to be the “dopest dad ever and coolest, most supportive and loving husband.”

He said he is happy with his job working with students at Celebration Community Church, but he wants to keep expanding his reach to more people.

He said even at CrossCurrent, he knows he can’t reach every young person, but he can equip other leaders, so the ministry can reach every child.

“Someday, I want to get involved with taking so many micro-influencers — people who don’t have a million followers, but they have a thousand or a hundred really solid good people with them — and equipping those type of people to make big change.

“That is my dream. Do I know what that is going to look like yet? No. I know I will have a solid marriage and a solid family. I will be plugged into a solid church forever regardless of where I live, and I know I will always be involved in my community, trying to make those dreams a reality. I think if I do these things, the way it will happen will figure itself out.”

He added, “If we do well enough today, and another today and another today, I just feel the future will take care of itself, because we cared about today.”