“He was trying to get into a graduate class. He called me to advocate for him to take this graduate course under this professor I’d worked with,” Thomas recalled. “Everybody was wondering if Jaylen could handle the course. He was just a freshman, but from talking to him and hearing what he wanted to do and what he wanted to get out of the course, I thought it was perfect for him. “And, of course, his academic advisor wanted to make sure that he got good grades so he could stay eligible. They thought that course may have been a little too difficult. But that’s how we first met. We bonded and met over education.