SJTSA PRESS RELEASE:
OCEAN CITY — At 1 p.m. on Oct. 22 at Ocean City High School, The South Jersey Transportation Safety Alliance sponsored a program entitled “I’m That Guy — The Matthew Maher Story” for the school’s juniors and seniors.
Cape May County’s Matt Maher, the rising soccer star from the Ocean City Barons youth system, who earned a soccer scholarship to Temple University and played professional soccer with the Philadelphia KIXX, faces up to 10 years in NJ State Prison after an alcohol related fatal motor vehicle crash.
Maher has decided to use his time between arraignment and sentencing to address local high school students about the consequences of your decisions and the importance of thinking though their decisions.
Maher made an uncounted number of good, well thought out decisions to get to where he was, but one night of poor, reckless decisions fueled by emotions brought his charmed life to a crashing stop. Literally.
The presentation starts with some statistics about motor vehicle crashes and how the road is “the deadly place on earth.” Alliance personnel compare the casualties of war figure to motor vehicle fatalities to make that point. Then we introduce Maher and he shares his life story about his All American Family and rise to professional soccer status. He emphasizes how he and his father would sit down to make decision about his future and how he wishes his father had been there at that bar with him to help him make that next decision because it was the one that changed his life. He talks about the injury that sidelined him and the impact it had that night.
Decisions determine destiny. That is Maher’s message and he hopes his story will influence others to think before they act and to make every decision like their life and future depends on it because it may.
The Alliance has partnered with Matthew Maher to bring his story to local high schools between now and December 31. Because of the time constraint we are asking schools to schedule an assembly presentation for the entire school or by grade depending on the number of students. There is no cost to the school and the fact that he is a local athlete who made it to professional status and is still young enough for them to relate to is the power of this program.
Formed in 1998, the Alliance brings together traffic safety professionals from the fields of law enforcement education, emergency services, engineering and planning, to develop region-wide traffic safety programs, share successful practices, and be a resource for the region.
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