Ralph Diamond ’98, a football walk-on-turned-firefighter, is still fired up about TCU

Ralph Diamond ’98 may just be lucky, but more likely he’s very good at recognizing opportunity — and working very hard.

For example, as a member of a Six-Man football team at a small Christian school in east Fort Worth, Diamond never considered playing “real” football. But with encouragement from family friend and former Dallas Cowboy Drew Pearson, Diamond walked on to the TCU team and eventually earned a letter.

After graduation, with plans to pursue a doctorate in psychology, Diamond headed to a job fair, thinking he’d work temporarily as a teacher. Instead, he was drawn to the table manned by firefighters.

“Firefighting was something I always respected as a profession,” he says. “The more I learned about it, the more I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

Today, Diamond is a lieutenant with the Fort Worth Fire Department, and studying for the captain’s exam — a task more difficult than any he encountered at TCU.

“The hardest I’ve had to study for any test, ever, was my promotional exams for the fire department,” he says. “When I was promoted to engineer, I studied for about a year.”

Diamond says he lucked into one of the best — and most progressive — fire departments in the country. “We’ve got new engines, new equipment, younger leadership.

“Fort Worth has it all: hazmat, swift water rescue, a bomb squad, high-angle rescue, arson investigation,” he says. “There are so many aspects you can get into, and there is always training you can do.”

As a member of Texas Task Force 1, Diamond works with other fire departments and the military. He was part of the first team to arrive in Corpus Christie when hurricane Ike slashed through South Texas. “It’s really encouraging and cool to help and serve with those people,” he says.

Diamond, who lives in Fort Worth with wife Christie, who is a Registered Nurse, and their three kids, Jordan, 13; Pierce 8; and Kai, 5, has proudly sported a TCU sticker on his fire-fighter helmet for the past eight years.

“The life experiences at TCU, playing at Amon Carter and flying around the country to play, really were wonderful,” he says.

“And now I have an awesome, awesome job. I really get fulfillment from doing this.”