Itβs a crisp, cool October Friday evening β perfect football weather β and on a flawless Forest Hill field, the number one-ranked St. Michaelβs Kerry Blues are hosting the Don Bosco Eagles of Rexdale.
The field at St. Michaelβs College School is named after billionaire Eugene Melnyk and surrounded by luxury condos; the artificial turf wouldnβt look out of place at the Rogers Centre. The young men from Don Bosco Catholic School are a long way from home.
βYou should see our field … oh my God, there are potholes everywhere,β says Fatima Langa, mother of Don Boscoβs starting quarterback, Jonathan Langa.
Ms. Langa makes for a one-woman cheerleading squad, generating as much noise as humanly possible: blowing a whistle, barking cheers into a plastic blue megaphone, shouting encouragement to her son, pounding her brown boots on a stainless steel bench. In between plays, Ms. Langa hands out Eagles stickers to other spectators, all the while admonishing them to cheer ever-more loudly.
βIβll have no voice left tomorrow,β says Ms. Langa.
Coming into this game, the team is ranked number two in the GTA; the Eagles narrowly lost 4-0 to Birchmount Collegiate in the Toronto championship finals last year. But the story of the Don Bosco Eagles is far more than a tale of a successful high school football program.
It is one of hope and second chances, with an unlikely protoganist: Toronto City Councillor Rob Ford, best known for generating conflict and controversy at city hall.
Seven years ago, Mr. Ford decided to revive the dormant football program at Don Bosco, which he allows is in a βpretty rough areaβ of town. More than half of the teamβs players reside in public housing units.
βMany of the kids on this team donβt have fathers in their lives anymore β some never did,β says Mr. Ford.
Mr. Ford says he wanted to give Don Bosco students something to aspire to other than hanging around the mall after school or linking up with gangs. He was so bullish the football program would act as a catalyst for positive change that he spent $25,000 of his own money to resuscitate it. Today, 80 kids make up the junior and senior squads.
βI know what football did for me as a kid,β says Mr. Ford. βI grew up in a family with a few problems, and I probably wouldnβt have finished high school without football. I just want to give back to these kids what I got out of football.β
On the gridiron, Mr. Ford finds a metaphor for life, and what it takes to be successful. βMore than any other team sport, everyone in football must be a team player. It requires ethics and morals and discipline, and the harder you try, the more successful youβll be.β
Perhaps the biggest individual success story to date is Jerome Miller, the beneficiary of a football scholarship at Missouri University of Science & Technology. Mr. Miller, a Don Bosco alumnus, will be headed for the National Football League draft upon graduation.
Mr. Ford notes Mr. Miller, before he took up football, was less than angelic, and was hanging out with the wrong crowd. βIf it wasnβt for football,β Mr. Ford says, βIβm absolutely sure he [Miller] would be dead or in jail.β
In a phone interview from Rolla, Missouri, Mr. Miller says simply: βWithout this program, I wouldnβt be where I am today. This [football] was an opportunity, and I ran with it.
ββRob Ford has been able to take a lot of kids off the street with this and [the success of the football program] has made Don Bosco a school where kids want to go to now. I can tell you Iβm now living the dream in real life, and I hope it never stops.β
Mr. Ford demands every player on the team put effort into their schoolwork. He regularly phones teachers at Don Bosco to check up on his playersβ academic and attendance records. βIf any player skips class or is late for class, the whole team gets punished. And players must get passing grades or theyβre off the team,β he says.
Ms. Langa says Mr. Ford has emerged as a father figure for many of the kids, helps pay for their shoes and bus fare when needed, and holds team barbeques.
ββHeβs doing everything he can to get these kids involved in school and keep them off the streets. Heβs strict, but he speaks to them man-to-man, not like theyβre little babies.β
Mr. Ford has had to contend with his own demons. He readily admits that despite having a father who was a successful businessman and politician, his family wasnβt always a happy clan; indeed, sometimes domestic problems threatened to tear the Ford family apart. As a city councillor today, Mr. Ford makes it a regular habit to criticize the spending habits of his fellow councillors. The result: he is often shunned and even mocked by his colleagues at city hall. An outsider who has experienced his fair share of hardship, Mr. Ford appears to identify with many of the kids on his football squads.
βThese guys are my family,β says Mr. Ford of the players. βIβll go to the wall for them. Iβve told them no matter what happens off the field, if you get into trouble and you need to call me at three or four in the morning, then call me.β
Have any players ever taken the coach up on his offer? βIβve had a few late night calls,β he says. βIβve had to bail a few out.β But he says some parents have βcried tears of joy,β because the football team turned their sonsβ lives around.
βIt keeps [my son] busy, keeps him off the street,β says Julian Nika, an Albanian immigrant whose son, Christian, plays linebacker, and was there on that perfect Friday in Forest Hill to cheer Don Bosco on.
βWe donβt know this game in Europe, but believe it or not, Iβm now going crazy for this sport.ββ
A few seats over, the noisy Ms. Langa was especially rooting for a comeback victory over St. Michaelβs. The last time the two teams met, in July, she says the game devolved into an ugly affair and that St. Michaelβs players employed trash talk, calling the Don Bosco players βwelfare casesβ and βhomie homeless.β
βThey were really mocking us,β she says.
Alas, victory was not in the cards. The Kerry Blues lived up to their number one ranking, clobbering the Eagles 22-7. But even so, there were few long faces from the Don Bosco parents. In their corner of Rexdale, success can be measured in different ways.
βWhat this program has done for school spirit and bringing the community together … itβs incredible,β says Don Bosco principal Sebastian Karubia.
Source: By David Menzies, National Post
Advocating for football prospects one story at a time.