A star football player was homeless until this happened
PHOENIX -- It is 3 in the morning in July, and the kid they call "Lucky" steps off a Greyhound bus in Phoenix, carrying his life’s belongings in two duffel bags and wearing a broad smile.
No more couch surfing, no more going hungry for the 17-year-old senior running back.
Lakel (pronounced La-kell) Davis is embraced by mentor Derwin Page, finding a sense of stability in his return to Alhambra High School, rejoining teammates and coaches, who for a while in the middle of last season didn't know what happened to him.
After rushing for 763 yards and 17 touchdowns in the Lions' 5-0 start, Davis vanished, telling nobody where he was headed. Personal problems, he said, led him to hop on a bus to Longview, Wash., where he lived with his grandmother, enrolled into R.A. Long High, and led that team in rushing the rest of the football season.
For eight days, Alhambra coach Frank Lautt and his assistants searched for Davis, looking into homeless shelters, asking for help from police.
“He just disappeared out of nowhere,” said senior receiver/defensive back Jesus Velazquez, one of several teammates who lent a couch for Davis to sleep on last year. “We were all worried about him.”
Davis was finally found on Facebook.
“I was kind of embarrassed, but I didn’t want everybody to know what I was going through,” Davis said. “I feel like I let the team down. We could have made the playoffs, if I hadn’t left.”
Alhambra lost its last three games and just missed the state playoffs.
Bumpy roads are found everywhere in the county, kids trying to find a break in life, trying to rise above difficulties out of their control.
They aren't all happy endings like in "The Blind Side," a kid plucked from an impoverished upbringing by a well-to-do family and eventually becoming a first-round NFL draft pick.
But for kids like Davis, there is a chance when a community rallies around him.
Davis was greeted with open arms in his return to Alhambra.
Page, a former truck driver who works security at Alhambra and helps coach the football team, picked Davis up from the bus station in July and opened his home to him, making sure he had clothes for school, food on the table and a bed to lay his head each night.
“He was on the streets, so I’m here,” Page said. “I said, ‘You need a place?’ He said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I said, ‘My house is your house.’ He said he wanted to come back to Alhambra."
Lautt didn't hesitate to let the 5-foot-10, 170-pound Davis come back. Lautt believes Davis has Division I college football talent and a classroom work ethic that tells him that he wants to make it beyond high school. He made good marks in Lautt's class last year.
“He was doing good in school,” Lautt said. “All of the coaches are the same, we have a lot of compassion for the kids. We care about him. He knows that.”
To read the rest of Lakel's journey home to Phoenix, click the story below:
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