_W _w 7_. 7 l4w 7 7 w w qw crw September Football Saturday - September 12, 2009 - Football Saturday 4-m- ..fir; "- *7*,. 4..' ~'. PAHOKEE. FLA. - IT'S NOT QUITE SUMMER, BUT THE FIRST TWANGS OF THE-DOG-DAYS ARE already snaking through the warm spring months. It's hard to escape the heat in a place like this, and although its endearing residents affectionately call it "Muck City," the ground and air are dry and thick with chalky dust. Dusk is just beginning to set in as we walk into a small, square, grey box of a house. It's across the street from one of the most dangerous areas in town, and we have been repeatedly told not to be outside after dark. We walk through the tile-floored living room and kitch- en and into a cramped bedroom. The floor, bed, desk, nightstand and every other flat surface in the room are all covered in a thick layer of rewritable DVDs, anything from "Superbad" to "Ter- minator: Salvation" (a movie that would not come out ifs theaters for another week) to Pahokee High School football highlight tapes, which the owner is particu- larly proud of. He pops in one of the myriad discs. It's a guerrilla- style video called "Palm Beach County: Gangstas and Thugs." Local gun-toting gang members flash across the screen, beating each other senseless and shooting AK-47s into the air. "That's my cousin; he's in jail," he says pointing, to the screen. "Oh, and that kid's dead. He was 17." Every five minutes or so, a new customer wanders unannounced into this makeshift Blockbuster and sifts through the pile of ripped movies. One acts surprised when he pulls out his wallet and finds that it's empty. "Don't even worry about it - just pay me back later," the owner says. It's not about the money with an operation like this. Sure, it's illegal, but what are the residents of this small, flailing farm town, where the median family income is almost $25,000 below the national average, sup- posed to do? There's one movie theater along a decrepit strip of buildings, the only area that could remotely be described as "downtown." Its windows are boarded up tightly, and one can only guess how long the marquee has beenblank. The next closest cinema is in Clewiston, Fla., more than a 40-minute car ride away. Not that many Pahokee residents could afford a trip to the movies, anyway. Vast sugarcane fields surround the town, and when United Sugar closed its Pahokee based plant about five years ago, it took away a major lifeline, according to city commissioner Susan Feltner. Many people left, and those who stayed are still suffer= ing through an even more crippled economy. "A lot of these kids hardly ever leave Palm Beach County, and a lot of them haven't even been 45 miles east to West Palm, to the beach," Pahokee defensive coordinator Rick James said. "So all they know is Paho- kee." It's hard to imagine a place in America where chil- dren can't see movies. Or go bowling. Or hang out at the mall, eat French fries with friends at a Burger King, play mini-golf or go to a skating rink. But for Martavious Odoms, Vincent Smith and Brandin Hawthorne - three members of the Michigan football team - that was life. Without the normal childhood distractions, Pahokee natives have two options: One is dedicating your life to the high school football team, which has won five of the last six state champion- ships and could see as many as 14 seniors earn Division-I scholarships this year, and Michigan is in the hunt for many of those kids. The other isn't so promising. Former Pahokee coach Don Thompson, who earned a scholarship to The Citadel after playing for the Blue Devils in his heyday, said it best: "You know, if it wasn't for Pahokee football, I'd prob- ably be in jail or prison somewhere." LOCAL GANGS RECRUIT boys as young as 12. At that age, kids are used as "jitterbugs," transferring weapons and money from one party to another. It's safer for the thugs and raises fewer red flags with the-police. Once you get into it, it's hard to get out. "There's nothing to do here," Jawarski Boui, Smith's half-brother, said. "It's easy to get into smoking weed, robbing, they even started killing around here." Boui said that in order to stock up on the more seri- ous weapons like the AK-47s, teenagers will drive pick- up trucks into the front of a gun store, load the bed with as much as they can grab ina few minutes and speed off to a safehouse. Rarely do the Pahokee Blue Devils - who attract the entire 6,500-person town on game days - and the area's gang life interact. Instead, the football team bands together. Smith, Odoms and Hawthorne have known each other since they were small children. They've played football together since age eight. Smith dated Hawthorne's sister when they were 10 years old. And through it all, the three players have worked toward an eventual common goal - a scholarship to the University of Michigan. But when Pahokee football and Pahokee gangsters do butt heads, it can rock the community, which has invested so much - physically, emotionally and spiritu- ally - in its Blue Devils. James - who's at the local Rec Center helping kids whenever he's not on the football field drilling them - remembered, with a heavy sigh and teary eyes, Leonard Pitts, an electrifying running back that played in the early 2000s. "He was one of the most gifted athletes I've ever seen," James said. "But I could drive you 'round these streets right now and point out 10, 15 guys that should be playing in the NBA or NFL right now and didn't make smart choices." Somewhere along the line, Pitts's God-given abilities on the field weren't enough, and he started mixing with the wrong people in Palm Beach County. His grades slipped and he left the football team. He eventually stopped showing up to school altogether. A week before James recalled this story, he briefly caught up with Pitts - as the former running back painted the County Com- missioner building with his fellow prisoners. In 2004, Pitts was arrested on first-degree battery charges, and he has been in jail since. But he might be the lucky one. According to James, someone shoved a shotgun in Pitts's youngerbrother's mouth and blew the back of his head onto the pavement. One of Pitts's older brothers is dead, too - another victim of the West Palm Beach gang community, one of the most hostile and vio- lent in the United States. If Pitts had stayed with the Blue Devils, who knows where he'd be today. With Pahokee's track record - one look at a Youth League photo from 10 years ago reveals eight or nine current Division-I players - it's easy to imagine a better life for such a gifted athlete. "That's how we save them from the gangs - the game of football," James said. But sometimes, football isn't enough. ON SEPT. 27, 2008, Brandin Hawthorne was in Ann Arbor for an official visit before committing to Michi- gan. It was the perfect Saturday for the freshman line- backer to make the trip north. A hint of summer still hung in the fall air on a crisp afternoon, perfect condi- tions for a football game in the Big House. He saw the Sooth game in Michigan Stadium history, one that will hang in fans' minds for years to come - a 19-point comeback over Wisconsin in the most exciting game of the season. Some might point to the energy on the corner of Sta- dium and Main as the reason Hawthorne chose Michi- gan. Others might say it was the immaculate facilities or enthusiastic meetings with members of the team and coaching staff. But none of that was on Hawthorne's mind that day. Hours before his flight, he sat in a hos- pital waiting room with Pahokee head coach Blaze Thompson and the mother of one of his best friends, Norman "Pooh" Griffith. That Friday, Pahokee had beaten Jupiter High School 34-10. It was a big night for Pooh - he was named the team's Most Valuable Player after the game, and accord- ing to James, Iowa State had called to give him a full- ride scholarship offer that day. To celebrate, Pooh went to a dance at Glades Central High School, the Blue Devils' fiercest rival. There was a scuffle when people found out Pooh, one of Pahokee's best players, was at the dance. Pooh did what he was supposed to, exactly what Pahokee coaches preach to their kids from youth club football to high school. He left at the first whiff of trouble. As his car was leaving the parking lot, six shots were fired from at least two guns. Pooh died later that night. There's an 18-year-old sitting in jail for the shooting. His name is Carl Booth Jr., akid who came through the Rec Center with Coach James and everyone else. He "It kills me dead, man. It kills me dead," James said. "It hurts for the simple reason that, you can't save them all. For some, it's not going to happen. And this is what happens when you don't do all you can for these kids. It's a tragedy." And there was Hawthorne, exhausted from the game and the swell of emotions, sitting in the hospi- tal's waiting room and adamantly deciding against fly- ing to Michigan. He had already softly committed to the school. He was comfortable with the program but wasn't 100-percent set, and felt that being with Pooh's family was much more important. But Pooh's mother Jackie and the Pahokee coaching staff convinced him to go. "When I got (to Michigan), they knew what hap- pened," Hawthorne said. "They embraced me. They asked me if I needed anything. They asked me how I was feeling. It was great. They took me in like I was already here, a player already here." To make Hawthorne feel even more like a family member, the Michigan coaches promised he could wear No. 7, Pooh's old jersey number. "I was telling his parents, 'When I get to college, I'm going to wear No. 7 and dedicate it to Pooh,' and I kept my word," Hawthorne said. "It's a great feeling to wear No. 7, because when I wear it, I feel like he's looking down on me, like, 'You gotta do it for me." Hawthorne was home. He committed. and enrolled early. It was hard to move to Ann Arbor and leave his one-year-old daughter, Brandi, behind. But with a good education and a chance to play at the next level, Haw- thorne knew Michigan could give him the opportunity to "raise my daughter and be the father to her that my father was never to me." See PAHOKEE, page 7B knew Pooh, was friends with Pooh. He is the son of the director of The Pahokee Church of God, Pooh's church. He had tried out for the Pahokee High School foot- ball team for the 2007 season. Even though the staff doesn't like to cut players - the more kids they can help, the more that stay off the streets - they had to trim the roster out of necessity. Booth didn't make it. (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT)(1) Dark skies loom at one of Pahokee's 20 allotted spring practices. (2) Downtown Pahokee, just down the road from the shore of Lake Okeechobee. (3) Paho- kee defensive coordinator Rick James shows off a few of his championship rings. (4) Florida State commit De'Joshua Johnson jogs out to practice. (5) Players resting after a tough practice.