Don McPherson, 1988 (Football)
Following his career at Syracuse, McPherson played four seasons in the National Football League with the Philadelphia Eagles and Houston Oilers and three more with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League.
McPherson is currently the creator and host of Training for Life, a life skills television program on MSG Varsity which addresses various social issues and their relation to sports. He is also the principle of G9 Turf, a new synthetic turf company that promotes innovation and safety within the industry. In addition, he serves on an advisory committee for the National Football Foundation and sit on the board of directors.
During his seven year professional career, McPherson remained active in the communities where he played. He served as program coordinator for Athletes Helping Athletes (AHA) on Long Island, N.Y. He also coordinated presentations for the Student-Athlete Leadership Program and Nassau County's Athletes Against Drunk Driving program. In 1993, he founded Athletes Helping Athletes, Canada, Inc.
For more than 20 years, since McPherson retired from professional football, he has impacted numerous groups and individuals through his work as an activist, educator, feminist and entrepreneur. In 1994, he joined Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society where he was named co-director of Athletes in Service to America. The program trained former college athletes to conduct community service programs in their community.
Since 1995 he has been a strong advocate for gender violence prevention in which he has director numerous groups and organizations and earned several honors for his leadership and public service. His educational and inspiring lectures on violence prevention, on more than 150 college campuses, have gained national attention. He was featured on MTV, in an article in the October 2002 issue of O magazine and was also a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show in September 2002.
McPherson worked as a game analyst for ESPN, BET and NBC coving college football from 1999 through the 2006 season. Beginning in 2006 he joined XM-Sirius Satellite Radio as an analyst and is a studio analyst on SportsNet New York's BIG EAST Game of the Week.
