School: Council Rock South
Football
Favorite athlete: Michael Jordan (for the way he handles himself on and off the court)
Favorite team: Tar Heels basketball
Favorite memory competing in sports: “Living it right now, the ’09 football season.”
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: “Since my nose bleeds easily, in 10th grade when I wrestled, I was forced to wear this Hannibal Lecter type mask to prevent it from getting hit.”
Music on iPod: “Anything with a good beat”
Future plans: College, graduate/law school, career, marriage, etc….
Words to live by: The poem “Our Deepest Fear”
One goal before turning 30: “Write a book”
One thing people don’t know about me: “I did absolutely nothing to get big calves.”
Braxton Ambrose lists Michael Jordan as his favorite athlete.
Not because Jordan won 10 scoring titles or was named league MVP five times and not because he led his Chicago Bulls team to six NBA championships. Rather, the Council Rock South senior admires Jordan for the way he handled himself on and off the court.
That’s not surprising to those who know Ambrose best.
“He’s the total package,” Rock South coach Vince Bedesem said. “Wherever he moves on to as far as college is concerned, he’s going to be a great addition to any university where he goes.
“We have a lot of kids like Braxton as far as that great representation. The kids know coming in that we keep a high standard. We’re very public in not only our school community but the community that we live in. We don’t ask but demand that the kids act accordingly and always represent themselves, their parents and the football team at a high standard. Braxton is the epitome of that.”
Ambrose has been a leader of this year’s football squad that has earned a spot in the district playoffs.
“From an athletic standpoint, he’s extremely important as far as his play,” Bedesem said. “He’s just a naturally strong human being, and he’s extremely tough.
“The thing that makes him so special is he’s such a gentle giant all in the same breath. There are actually times I wish he would get a little more angry. He just has this God-given ability to make plays and help his football team out whenever possible.”
If Ambrose brought only talent to the gridiron, the Rock South senior would have plenty of value to his team, but talent is just the tip of the iceberg for this young man.
“He’s just so unselfish,” Bedesem said. “Whatever you need him to do, whenever we have a little bit of a hole or gap, especially defensively, he’s there to say, ‘I’ll do whatever you need me to do.’”
On the offensive side of the football, the senior fullback – who also is a starter at defensive end - is a cornerstone of the Golden Hawks’ triple option.
“We also can put him at tailback and have him running out of that spot,” Bedesem said. “He’s very, very unselfish – not to mention his leadership qualities.
“He just always has that persona of thinking intelligently, of being a leader and representative of the team. I guess it’s the maturity level that he has in him. He just has that innate ability about him to lead.”
Ambrose takes those leadership qualities into the classroom. He is the senior class president, and he takes his responsibilities seriously.
“It tough, especially around this time of year,” he said. “We have our fall festival, and it’s really tough around the times we have events coming up like proms and dances and the fall festival.
“It’s pretty much the same day (every day). I’m selling breakfast for the senior class with the other officers before school to get money for class dues, and then I have a full day of classes.”
Ambrose doesn’t take classes to simply fill his schedule. An honors student, his schedule includes AP Math, AP Psychology as well as a full load of honors classes.
“Football doesn’t run late,” he said. “It does take up a big part of my afternoon, but I’m home by seven, eight o’clock, and that’s enough time to knock out homework.”
On weekends, Ambrose spends time communicating and catching up with his fellow student government officers.
“It makes for a full schedule, but I prefer a full schedule,” he said. “I’m not lying around the house doing nothing.”
Ambrose didn’t really get involved in competitive football until he was in seventh grade. Granted, he’d played some as a youngster but dropped it in favor of soccer with basketball his sport of choice.
In seventh grade, he was approached by a football coach who was impressed with his size.
“I really had not made a decision to go out, but when I finally came out, I fell in love with it and stuck with it ever since seventh grade,” Ambrose said. “Playing football wasn’t really a thought. It was just someone saying, ‘You’re big. You really should go out,’ and I pursued it.”
By the time he was a sophomore, Ambrose, who had played for the freshman football team, had dropped basketball in favor of football. He saw varsity playing time on both sides of the football behind standout fullback B.J. Deola.
“He influenced me a lot,” Ambrose said. “I learned basically everything about the fullback position from B.J. Not only did he teach me how to run the plays, he taught me how to run, where to run and what to look for when you’re running.
“He also informed me about the position of fullback. Almost every single play that we have involves the fullback – B.J. was like a coach to me, and he really helped me out with that.”
While Deola was a tough act to follow, Ambrose never backed down from the challenge.
“When we talk alumni and the history of our program, Brian (Deola) is probably the best football player to come out of our place so far,” Bedesem said. “He was a (heck) of a legacy to follow, and Braxton just picked right up and never allowed that to really affect him as far as ‘Oh, I have to keep up with Deola.’
“Actually, the two of them pushed one another. He learned a lot from Brian, and again, that helped make him the player he is today.”
The player Ambrose is today is something pretty special, according to Bedesem, who notes that his senior fullback is now fully recovered from an injury that sidelined him for several weeks at the start of this season.
“We have our true Braxton back as far as being healthy and being able to really turn it on now in the second half of the season,” the Rock South coach said. “He’s extremely fast for his size.”
The Golden Hawks’ coach believes that Ambrose is just beginning to realize his full potential on the gridiron.
“He’s very new to the game,” Bedesem said. “He’s not an ultimate student of the game, doesn’t have a lot of history with the game.
“Being cliché – he’s a diamond in the rough. We have guys coming through our program who have probably slept with a football since they were four. Braxton is not one of those. Maybe it’s because he’s so well-rounded and all the things he’s involved in. Football has become, as of late, a big part of his life.”
Bedesem believes that Ambrose will be a steal for some college program.
“I know that any Patriot Conference team would be getting a great kid in him if they came calling,” the Rock South coach said. “I also know there have been some MAC schools that have been reaching out and inquiring a whole lot these last couple of weeks.”
A throwback to the old days, Ambrose– according to Bedesem – is the prototypical Central Bucks West player of its state title runs in the late 90s.
“He has that same frame, that same build,” the Golden Hawks’ coach said. “In our win over Abington, we probably played him 10 or 12 downs at defensive tackle. That’s just the type of kid he is.
“He gets in there and uses that quickness he uses at fullback, and we utilize that on our defensive line.”
Ambrose points to his team’s huge dramatic 41-38 overtime win over Abington as the highlight of his athletic career.
“In football alone, it was one of the best games I’ve ever performed in,” he said. “We can go into the playoffs, and that becomes my greatest, but as of now, that’s probably one of the greatest feelings and sports experiences I have ever had.”
Although Ambrose has not finalized his college choice, he plans to major in business or pre-law.
“I’m looking for the college that will offer me a good education and the possibility of continuing football,” he said.
For now, Ambrose is still living out the dream that is his final high school season – a season that is even more special taking into account the spate of injuries that hit the Golden Hawks this season.
“When we started the season with all the injuries, all of us were bowing our heads and confused,” he said. “Some of the people who were injured were our star athletes, but every game we ended up playing for them.
“We have sophomores stepping up, juniors stepping up and other seniors stepping up and taking the opportunity to the fullest.”
Leading the way is Ambrose, a young man who epitomizes the concept of student-athlete.
