Thursday, October 12, 2006
Football helps broken community to mend after teen's death - Seattle Times
... Time for Timothy Miller to eulogize his 16-year-old son. Michael Miller lies below the podium in a wooden casket. And just beyond the casket sit five brothers — including one stepbrother charged with first-degree manslaughter in Mikey's death.
"I have broken many bones," Miller says, his voice cracking and wavering. "I have passed hundreds of kidney stones. I have had a heart attack, and I have had a stroke. And you know what?
"I'd rather endure all those right now and be set on fire than deal with what I'm dealing with now. Such is the love that I have for my son."
A box of tissues floats through the church until both empty nearly three hours after the service started.
...
[The football coaches] would work between 70 and 90 hours a week in season, teaching and coaching, with minimal compensation. They'd be coaching a team with players of at least 10 different ethnicities, at a school where 38 languages are spoken. Most of their kids are from low-income, single-parent families.
"They have every reason in the world to be down on themselves," says Lele Teo, an assistant coach, "to be pissed off at the world. But they handle things really well because they know they have a family here that will take care of them."
...
Friendly. That was Mikey, too. The kind of kid who bagged groceries at the local Albertsons, bugging people with one item to insist on carryout just so he could talk with them en route to their car.
...
"I've lived a long life, and I don't know a fraction of the people Mikey knew." [said his father]
Miller stands at the center of a complicated tragedy. An inspiration, assistant coach Teo says. The kind of father who went to two-a-day practices this summer so he could know the people his kids were hanging out with.
Now one son is dead. Another is charged as an adult with first-degree manslaughter, for recklessness, according to police. And four other sons, all so young, are trying to make sense of it.
Speaking about Jordan, the stepbrother charged in Mikey's death, Miller chokes up again. He doesn't want Jordan to go to jail.
"He revered Mikey and loved him," Miller says. "It was one child using bad judgment. And for this to happen, it's a bad nightmare from which he cannot wake up."
...
... Time for Timothy Miller to eulogize his 16-year-old son. Michael Miller lies below the podium in a wooden casket. And just beyond the casket sit five brothers — including one stepbrother charged with first-degree manslaughter in Mikey's death.
"I have broken many bones," Miller says, his voice cracking and wavering. "I have passed hundreds of kidney stones. I have had a heart attack, and I have had a stroke. And you know what?
"I'd rather endure all those right now and be set on fire than deal with what I'm dealing with now. Such is the love that I have for my son."
A box of tissues floats through the church until both empty nearly three hours after the service started.
...
[The football coaches] would work between 70 and 90 hours a week in season, teaching and coaching, with minimal compensation. They'd be coaching a team with players of at least 10 different ethnicities, at a school where 38 languages are spoken. Most of their kids are from low-income, single-parent families.
"They have every reason in the world to be down on themselves," says Lele Teo, an assistant coach, "to be pissed off at the world. But they handle things really well because they know they have a family here that will take care of them."
...
Friendly. That was Mikey, too. The kind of kid who bagged groceries at the local Albertsons, bugging people with one item to insist on carryout just so he could talk with them en route to their car.
...
"I've lived a long life, and I don't know a fraction of the people Mikey knew." [said his father]
Miller stands at the center of a complicated tragedy. An inspiration, assistant coach Teo says. The kind of father who went to two-a-day practices this summer so he could know the people his kids were hanging out with.
Now one son is dead. Another is charged as an adult with first-degree manslaughter, for recklessness, according to police. And four other sons, all so young, are trying to make sense of it.
Speaking about Jordan, the stepbrother charged in Mikey's death, Miller chokes up again. He doesn't want Jordan to go to jail.
"He revered Mikey and loved him," Miller says. "It was one child using bad judgment. And for this to happen, it's a bad nightmare from which he cannot wake up."
...
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