Choosing His Own Path: Jalen Travis

By Craig Sachson
PrincetonTigersFootball.com

Jalen Travis woke early one morning in the Spring of 2020 ready for his daily workout at DeLaSalle High School, where his father took a job as a maintenance worker so that his children could both afford tuition and have access to facilities. Before he left, his dad showed him a Facebook video from a nearby town that would alter the course of his life.

That was the morning of May 26. The video showed the death of George Floyd, and it was the one that would soon go viral throughout the nation.

"It was just a few blocks from my dad's childhood home," said Travis, a senior offensive lineman on the Princeton football team. "We went there that same afternoon, as people just began to recognize the magnitude of what this moment meant. There was grief, anger, and confusion that I was experiencing while being there with my father, a black man living in the city of Minneapolis. It all hit home for me. Those weeks that followed definitely made a huge impact on me."

In turn, Travis decided to make his own impact by choosing his own path. It was neither the first or last time he chose his own direction, and he has always done so with the intention of making a difference for others.

• • •

The fourth of five Travis children, Jalen watched his two older brothers play Division I college basketball at a pair of the nation's premier academic institutions, Stanford and Harvard. He seemed destined for a similar path while playing for Team Sizzle on the AAU circuit. You may not recognize his name first among his sixth-grade team, but he understands.

That's what happens when you play with future Top 5 NBA draft picks like Chet Holmgren and Jalen Suggs.

Travis played basketball for three seasons per year growing up, but he did enough during his one season of football to become a high-level standout on the offensive line. He would grow into an all-state selection and his school's Male Football and Basketball Player of the Year, and by the end of his sophomore season, he shifted his collegiate focus fully to football.

"There is immense value in having my own path," he said. "That's part of who I am, and how I lead my life. I always gravitate to the harder path, the path less traveled. My brothers have taught me a world of things, and they continue to teach me by the day, but I was naturally inclined to pursue this knowing how intense and challenging football is, especially at my position."

He felt a connection with the Princeton coaches and campus, and was excited to join a program that had won three of the previous seven Ivy League championships following the 2019 season. And while his collegiate career did begin during the fall of his 2020, the COVID pandemic kept him home in Minnesota, the center of the George Floyd storm.

It was a challenging period for Travis, but he once again chose to find his own path during the toughest of times.

"I focused on finding myself and the person I wanted to be coming out of the pandemic," he said. "There was a lot of reflection on what's the legacy that this pandemic will leave on me, and how do I want to reflect it coming out of it. I built a weight room in my backyard, and I was going to make it my mission to become the quintessential Division I football player when I come out of it. It has always been a part of me to give back, so how can I use the circumstances I was given to help others."

Travis forged that path by founding the nonprofit The Just Action Coalition, which aimed at promoting substantive youth engagement in policy-level advocacy on the local and state levels in Minnesota. Since then, he has interned in the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and he was a 2022 recipient of the Leonard D. Schaeffer Fellowship in Government Service. Travis is co-director of Minority Pre-Law Association, a Student-Athlete Wellness Leader and a member of the Student Athlete Service Council. He is also a liaison for Princeton's Advocacy and Activism Student Board at the John H. Pace, Jr. '39 Center for Civic Engagement and an advisory board member for the Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES).

Oh, and he is on the radar of NFL draft scouts as an offensive line prospect.

"Jalen Travis is a great player," said Bob Surace, a former offensive lineman who has coached that position in the NFL. "Whether it's a coach watching video, a scout at practice, a fan, an independent organization like PFF, people see him as a truly exceptional offensive tackle. He goes beyond football. He is a scholar, a leader on the field and a leader in the community. He is an incredible person."

• • •

Forging your own path is rarely easy, and that has been the case for Travis throughout his Princeton career. His first time on campus was the spring of 2021, when many of his teammates were still remote. He was fully immersed in the playbook and played both sides at times because of limited numbers. It was a challenge, but it got him ready to step into the rotation for the eventual 2021 Ivy League championship team.

Travis earned the starting role at right tackle for the 2022 season and impressed the league coaches enough to earn All-Ivy League recognition. It was especially remarkable for somebody who hadn't fully committed to football until his junior year of high school and missed an entire fall due to the pandemic. There was some carryover from his basketball development — footwork especially — but his mentality played a massive part in how quickly and dramatically he has developed on the gridiron.

"I knew I could compete with the best in the country if I put my time into it," he said. "That's always been a defining feature of who I want to be, whether it's on the basketball court or the football field."

He wished he had more time to compete as a senior this season, but injuries have kept him on the sideline for the majority of the season. The physical pain is one thing, but the anguish of not being alongside his football family has been far more challenging.

And yet, there was a path to do positive work, and Travis forged his way on it.

"It's been tough not being able to play alongside some guys that I quite frankly love, and I've been on the four-year journey with," he said. "I've been trying to empower my teammates, and making sure that just because I'm down, we can still get the job done. I've found great meaning and great responsibility in that, especially with an offensive line that is pretty young. I struggled with confidence when I was young, and I wanted to make sure that our young guys will succeed, and they need to believe in themselves to make that happen."

He is happy to know that he can engage with those teammates both on and off the field for Senior Day this Saturday against Yale. Both the Tigers and Bulldogs are one game out of first place heading into the weekend, meaning the winner is assured to be in contention on the final day of the season.

Travis wants one more title before he turns his attention to the NFL — though he has a remarkable other future option as well. In April, he was one of 62 recipients nationwide to be awarded a Truman Scholarship, which provides recipients with up to $30,000 toward graduate school along with professional development opportunities to prepare for careers in public service.

Per the Award announcement:

Travis is an anthropology concentrator who is also pursuing a certificate in African American studies. He is interested in pursuing a career in criminal or public interest law and plans to use the scholarship to pursue a J.D. at Columbia Law School through its L.E.A.D. Fellowship, a two-year deferral program. He hopes to spend the first year working as a criminal defense investigator or paralegal for a public defense firm, and the second year working at a legal justice advocacy organization to better understand that field and policy-level avenues for change.

Whether it is the NFL or law school immediately after his Princeton journey ends, you can rest assured of two things — Travis will forge his own path, and he will help people along the way.

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