How Rutherford County baseball star thrived after La Vergne family rescued him from foster care

Ashton Keck is your typical well adjusted high school senior who likes what most his age do, from hanging out with friends and family, participating in athletics and planning his college future and career choice.

But it wasn't always that way. It took a period turmoil and years of adjustment and shedding insecurities for the La Vergne High baseball player to get to this point of normalcy.

Keck is one of Rutherford County's top baseball players and holds a GPA of over 3.0. He plans on attending college in the fall and begin studying criminal justice. More specificallym he wants to become a Drug Enforcement Agency agent. His past has a lot to do with that.

His past is also a glaring reminder of how good he has it now. Keck is thriving, and he can thank T.J. and Elizabeth Townsend for that.

Keck was taken in permanently by the Townsend family in 2019. Before that, he basically had no place else to go.

Ashton Keck went from instability to structured home life

Keck became best friends with Tre Townsend around fifth grade. It wasn't long after that when Keck's home life began taking a turn for the worse. His biological mother's involvement in drugs and her association with family members with the same issue was a big factor, Ashton said.

"I want to say it was when my uncle came to the house is when the bad stuff hit the fan," Keck remembered. "It was drugs. I guess she saw that it was a bad situation and let me live with my godmother."

With his home life being unsuitable, Keck began being shuffled from home to home. His mother took it upon herself to get him out of the situation and sent him to live with his godparents before ultimately going to rehab.

However, that didn't work out and he ended up and in foster care, and at one point was sent to a group home in Clarksville.

The Townsends had already began discussing the possibility of opening their home to Keck. With the issues surrounding kids in group homes, T.J. had seen enough.

"When he got moved to Clarksville, that made me really want to go get him," T.J. said. "After that, we made the decision to go get him."

The Townsends brought Keck into their home on Feb. 17, 2019, two days after his 13th birthday. That began a 90-day home trial through the Department of Children's Services. Three months later he had a forever home.

There were ups and downs after Keck moved in with the Townsends.

Ashton Keck had tough adjustment period with new home

Even with a dramatically better home life, it took time for Keck to adjust to his new surroundings.

He went from having no discipline or accountability, sometimes staying up until 1 a.m. on a school night, to not knowing where his next bed would be, to all of a sudden having structure and rules.

"When I first moved in, I hated it with all my heart," Keck said. "I didn't know what it was. I felt like there was no freedom. (Before) I was too free. Going from doing whatever I wanted to actually having parents is a totally different mindset, a different world.

"I thought it was hard. But looking back at my seventh, eighth and ninth grade self, I was blessed."

He even ran away for a few days the summer before ninth grade, going back to stay with a friend at a home he was at before the Townsends.

"He didn't talk to us for like 36 hours," T.J. said. "We finally said, 'Hey, we want you to be here.' Later that night he said he wanted to be here. I think he was scared we were about to pass him along like he had been passed along. Ever since then it's been a complete change."

There were periods of awkwardness and adjustment for Keck and his new family, although it didn't take long for him to call the Townsends "mom" and "dad."

Tre Townsend's best friend was now his brother.

"It was definitely a change," said Tre, a senior who is homeschooled. "But it was a good change. I had to accommodate a new brother. It was somebody I loved so much already and considered family."

Ashton Keck, Townsends thriving as family of five

Ashton Keck and his La Vergne baseball team began district tournament play Friday as his senior season winds down. He is teammates with his younger brother, freshman Dominic Townsend.

"(Living with the Townsends) has been great. They really taught me how to become a more mature person with relationships. Communication was a big factor with them." Keck said.

His life six years ago is now admittedly a blur to him. It took some time, but he made amends with his biological mother, who Keck says is now drug free and doing well, living in North Carolina with his younger sister, Elizabeth, who was also taken away and lived with an aunt during that time.

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"I forgive her," Keck said. "God told me to forgive her, and I did. She's doing good with my younger sister. I go see them every once in a while. It took me a long time to get close to her again. I really think she found God as well. It took all of us being taken away from her to find God."

He also doesn't understate his gratefulness to the Townsends for where he is today, or where he might have ended up.

"I don't know. I think I might have ended up in that boys home," Keck said. "I might have gotten adopted, but who wants to adopt a seventh grader? If it weren't for the Townsends, I don't know where I would be."

Cecil Joyce covers high school sports and MTSU athletics for The Daily News Journal. Contact him at cjoyce@dnj.com and follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @Cecil_Joyce.

This article originally appeared on Murfreesboro Daily News Journal: TSSAA baseball: Ashton Keck has new family, out of foster care