{"id":240617,"date":"2025-05-14T01:26:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T01:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/alabama\/auburn-all-american-super-bowl-champ-has-a-plan-for-birmingham\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T01:26:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T01:26:49","slug":"auburn-all-american-super-bowl-champ-has-a-plan-for-birmingham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=240617","title":{"rendered":"Auburn All-American Super Bowl champ has a plan for Birmingham"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n
\"Reggie<\/a>
Reggie Torbor (Photo by J.P. Howard)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today\u2019s guest columnist is Reggie Torbor.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m from Baton Rouge, Louisiana\u2014a place full of culture, grit, and history.<\/p>\n

But even at a young age, I knew I wanted more. I remember sitting with my younger sister, having conversations about what we would do with our lives.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t have all the answers, but we agreed on one thing: we wanted to make a difference. We wanted to change our environment, not just for ourselves, but for those who would come after us.<\/p>\n

Early on, I realized that football could be my ticket. I poured myself into the game, working relentlessly in high school to make sure I could create opportunities for myself. That hard work paid off in the form of multiple scholarship offers. After careful thought, I chose Auburn University. That decision would shape the rest of my life.<\/p>\n

My five years at Auburn were some of the best I\u2019ve ever had. I built relationships with teammates who became lifelong brothers, found mentors who invested in me not just as a player but as a man, and met my incredible wife, Michelle, who I\u2019ve now been married to for 20 years.<\/p>\n

What I appreciated most about Auburn was that the coaches and staff were intentional about creating an environment where a young Black man from Baton Rouge could thrive. They recognized the environment I came from was very different from Auburn, Alabama, and they didn\u2019t just leave me to figure it out on my own. That kind of intentionality made all the difference in my life.<\/p>\n

After college, I was blessed with the opportunity to play in the NFL. I was drafted by the New York Giants, and during my time there, we won Super Bowl 42. I spent eight years in the league, and it was a life-changing experience.<\/p>\n

People often think that if they were a little bigger and a faster, they could be a professional athlete\u2014but that wasn\u2019t my experience. The NFL is an environment of extreme accountability. Every day demanded preparation, execution, and hard work. You had to take ownership of your responsibilities. It wasn\u2019t about whether one could<\/em> do it\u2014it was about whether they would<\/em> do it.<\/p>\n

That level of pressure was too much for some. I remember training camps where guys would pack up and drive home in the middle of the night. They\u2019d had enough. For me, though, those eight years were more than I could\u2019ve ever dreamed of. I was able to change my life and support my immediate family, but when it came to my community back home, the impact was minimal. I could help with a bill or a short-term need, but I couldn\u2019t create lasting change.<\/p>\n

While addressing immediate needs are of some value, my community needed more\u2014they needed an opportunity. They needed a chance to build something for themselves. I knew that, but I didn\u2019t have the means to make it happen.<\/p>\n

In early 2018, that began to change when I started working at Brasfield & Gorrie. It was an amazing opportunity to be mentored and supported by incredible people who challenged me to think beyond what I thought was possible. Toward the end of 2021, we began serious conversations about creating a minority-owned, diverse commercial general construction company\u2014one that could truly impact Birmingham by creating opportunities and providing tools for those who had historically been left out.<\/p>\n

After a year and a half of planning, Pylon Building Group was born.<\/p>\n

Our mission is simple: Build Well to Create Good<\/em>. First and foremost, we\u2019re builders. That means we\u2019re committed to preparation, execution, and hard work\u2014principles I carried over from my time in the NFL. We aim to deliver high-quality projects while constantly developing our team to compete at the highest level. But beyond the bricks and mortar, we want to use what we build to uplift others and positively impact our community.<\/p>\n

We cast a wide net, seeking to create opportunities for a diverse group of people from all backgrounds. Because the truth is, while I\u2019m from Baton Rouge, Birmingham is now my home. My wife and I have raised our family here, and we love this city deeply. But we also recognize that there\u2019s still so much work to be done.<\/p>\n

Too often, minorities in our community receive the worst of everything\u2014the worst education, the fewest resources, the least encouragement, and even the lowest quality food. That\u2019s unacceptable. And that\u2019s why Pylon is joining many others in this fight for opportunity. We\u2019re doing it one hire at a time, one project at a time, one life at a time.<\/p>\n

My hope is that one day, this work won\u2019t be necessary anymore. Our intentionality will have helped to create a community where opportunity is no longer a privilege, but a right extended to everyone. And when that day comes, every person in Birmingham will be better for it.<\/p>\n

Reggie Torbor<\/strong><\/span> learned the value of hard work at an early age by hanging sheet rock with his father during summer breaks. As a member of the Auburn Football team from 1999 to 2003, he was selected for the All-SEC Football Team. He had an eight-year career in the NFL that included a Super Bowl win in 2008. He\u2019s currently President of Pylon Building Group<\/a><\/strong> <\/span>and lives in Birmingham with his wife, Michelle, and their two sons, R.J. and Cameron.<\/em><\/p>\n

David Sher is the founder and publisher of\u00a0ComebackTown<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).<\/em><\/p>\n

Click here to sign up for our newsletter.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Invite David to speak for free to your group about how we can have a more prosperous metro Birmingham. dsher@comebacktown.con<\/p>\n

(Visited 288 times, 288 visits today)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reggie Torbor (Photo by J.P. Howard) Today\u2019s guest columnist is Reggie Torbor. I\u2019m from Baton Rouge, Louisiana\u2014a place full of culture, grit, and history. But even at a young age, I knew I wanted more. I remember sitting with my younger sister, having conversations about what we would do with our lives. We didn\u2019t have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":240618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11763],"tags":[88516,34228,13518,1658,52520,10933,814],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-240617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alabama","tag-allamerican","tag-auburn","tag-birmingham","tag-bowl","tag-champ","tag-plan","tag-super"],"yoast_head":"\nAuburn All-American Super Bowl champ has a plan for Birmingham - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=240617\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Auburn All-American Super Bowl champ has a plan for Birmingham - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Reggie Torbor (Photo by J.P. 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