ORLANDO, Fla. — All high school football fields measure the exact same length and width. What can’t be calculated on the gridiron at Jones High School is the memories for Kenny Shaw. 

“This was the field I scored my first touchdown on,” he says with a smile. 

The six points on the scoreboard pale in comparison to what he’s made count every day since. 

“I knew this was my why,” says the former Dr. Phillips and Florida State star. “This was my way out growing up as an inner-city kid. I wasn’t the biggest guy, but I knew this game would open up some doors for me.” 

He ran through those doors, bursting onto the national scene as a four-star recruit at Dr. Phillips. He carried that success to Tallahassee where he racked up 124 career catches and served as a key member of Florida State’s 2013 national championship team. 

After a seven-year stint at the professional level, Shaw now uses the game to give back. On the same field he first found the endzone, he held his annual "Shaw Is R.A.W Academy" Camp. 

Joined by former Seminole greats including former Heisman winner Jameis Winston, Shaw and his staff spent the entire day teaching technique and fundamentals. What the campers left with was an understanding of what the game can do. 

Shaw says he wants athletes to use football for good, to surround yourself with people who encourage you and utilize the platform given. 

“You never beat the streets,” he said. “The streets is undefeated if you look at the statistics.” 

Shaw says football motivated him to make a better life for him and his family. He promised his mother he’d get a scholarship and he vowed to give thanks to the village that molded him. It was never easy, he said. 

“Dark times molded me into who I was on that field and what I am to this day,” Shaw said. 

Football was his fire, and Shaw says it helped him get to where he wanted and now it’s his fuel to pave way for future generations. 

“We have the blueprint in a sense so why not give it back to them,” he said.