Excelling on and off the field, FVSU’s Zaquan Baldwin reflects on his past and future

Growing up in Macon, Zaquan Baldwin had to motivate himself to go to school.

The Fort Valley State graduate and 2021 all-SIAC defensive lineman was raised by a single mother who woke up early in the morning to go to work, so he had to get himself up and to the bus stop. He said he grew in an area battling crime and poverty, with few positive role models.

Struggling in school, Baldwin said he spent time in Regional Youth Detention Centers before an interaction with Southwest High School head football coach Joe Dupree, who encouraged him to try out for the football team. Playing football and joining the ROTC helped turn his life around, Baldwin said.

“I had never thought about going to college to play football, I wasn’t really even into football,” he said. “[Dupree] and (assistant coach) Trent Allen led me on my journey into wanting to play football.

“Then my ROTC instructor came up to me one day and told me he was proud of me. That changed my life forever, because I’d never had anybody tell me they were proud of me.’

Baldwin got into an advanced studies program in high school and said he began to take his education seriously, graduating and enrolling in Fort Valley State University. He spent five season playing on the Wildcats’ defensive line, earning all-conference honors this season and graduating summa cum laude.

During his junior year, Baldwin’s son was born, so he juggled school work, football, community service and raising his son.

“He’s always copying everything I do, so I always have to watch what I do,” he said. “I have someone looking up to me. I want the best for my son, I want the best for myself, I want the best for my family.”

When he was not playing sports, in class or caring for his son, Baldwin was out in the community volunteering, participating in canned food drives and helping with trash pickups. He said he never doubted that he could graduate, even as a new father, thanks to his professors at FVSU.

“I already stepped off in the real world way before graduation at the beginning of my junior year,” he said. “On March 30 of 2020, I got my own apartment because my son was coming. And ever since then I’ve been paying bills and doing what I had to do.”

Baldwin plans to get his rehabilitation counselor degree, then become a licensed professional counselor and earn an education specialist degree.

“I feel though my turnaround point was the grownups around me who molded me into the man I am today,” he said. “That’s why I’m going to become an educator, so I can inspire that little boy or little girl and show them it’s possible to change.”