Thirty-Five White Players. Thirty-Two Black Players. Some Rich. Some Poor. All Myers Park Mustangs. We Spent the Entire Fall

Thirty-five white players. Thirty-two black players. Some rich. Some poor. All Myers Park Mustangs. We spent the entire fall with them to see what happens CHAPTER I when you put kids from SENIOR NIGHT different backgrounds together for a season. The HE WANTS EVERYONE around him to believe it’s OK. Really, it is. It’s result is this three-part story fine that it’s Senior Night and she’s not here yet. He’ll play it tough, of hard lessons, lifetime because that’s what football players do, and because that’s what she friendships, stupid mistakes, taught him to do. He raises his chin and sticks it out and gives a quick it’s-no-big-deal nod when an assistant coach volunteers to walk with and endless optimism about him. He dances and makes a nervous joke to his best friend, who’s uncertain futures. standing behind him in line. And he knows that when his name is called, he’ll strut like he always does. He’s Jamal Watson, after all, BY MICHAEL GRAFF number 7, the star cornerback of the football team, a tall and quick PHOTOGRAPHS BY LOGAN CYRUS and handsome young man who just a few weeks ago won homecoming king. “Y’all can just call me King ’Mal,” he said that night. King ’Mal always puts on a strong face for the people, even right now, on a damp night in early November, when he’s just a 17-year-old kid wishing his Mama would hurry up and get here. “Where is she?” he asks under his breath, sneaking a peek at his phone. He’s standing alone near the front of a line of Myers Park High School football seniors and their moms and dads, uncles and aunts, grandmas and grandpas. Watson is the best player on the team, and at times he’s also the most frustrating. His coaches say he’s matured a mile in the past year. Yet during practice, when those coaches look the other way, he might run a couple of plays with the back of his pants down around his thighs to moon his teammates. He has the attention of several Division I col- leges, but two weeks ago he had a momentary lapse and got burned for a game-deciding touchdown against rival Independence. He’s the player opposing coaches seek out after games, showering him with words about what a fine future he has, and yet last week, just two hours before game time, Watson couldn’t even find his jersey. There are moments during a long football season when you see into the soul of a young man, and, despite what you might see in movies, those moments rarely have anything to do with football. Like now. His eyes wide, his head darting back and forth between his phone and the parking lot. “She said she was almost here,” he says quietly. Kameela Watson works as donor recruiter at the American Red Cross, and tonight she’s running late. She raises Jay, as she calls her only son, and his 12-year-old sister, Tyana Ford, by herself in a three-bedroom apartment off Old Providence Road. Their complex, Gladedale, is a subsidized-housing community, but it sits in one of Charlotte’s richest neighborhoods. Jamal is the “man of the house,” his mother says. He handles everything from dishes to trash to laundry. He’s a pretty good brother, too: “He can be aggravating at times,” his sister says. “But he’s always there for me.” Watson is one of the most popular kids at one of the most diverse The season starts in high schools in the region. In a school district where half of the August (this photo is schools are segregated by race, Myers Park’s student body is about from before a Week 2 game against Ardrey Kell) 58 percent white, 25 percent black, and 10 percent Latino. It is a and ends in November. place that mixes kids from the richest zip codes in Charlotte—those 60 CHARLOTTE FEBRUARY 2016 FEBRUARY 2016 CHARLOTTE 61 the bench, he’s met by Chadwick, a short and fiery man with three “You cannot DO THAT!” children of his own. around Myers Park—and the poorest, the very least, she says, she wants a photo. a football team in the heart of the second- “You cannot DO THAT!” he yells including Grier Heights, or Grier Town, as Behind them a noise builds. Tonight’s fastest growing big city in America, a city he yells at Williams, and at Williams, and Williams looks the locals call it. Each year about one-third opponents from East Mecklenburg walk that’s increasingly diverse and trying to Williams looks down. down. “Look me in the eyes. Look of the nearly 2,900 students who attend up the steps behind the makeshift mother- figure out how we’ll all live next to each me in the eyes right now. You cannot school here are on free or reduced lunch. son moment, chanting a call and response: other after generations of segregation “Look me in the eyes. DO THAT!” The diversity plays out in different ways. “What time is it?” “Game time.” “What time in our neighborhoods and schools. It’s a Look me in the eyes “Yessir,” Williams says, and walks During lunch, black kids crowd at some is it?” “Game time.” story about what it’s like to take kids who to the bench. tables and white kids cluster at others. It is the last regular-season Friday night in many ways are born opposites and put right now. You cannot A possession later, before the The football players—black and white, of an up and down year for Myers Park. In a them together under helmets that are the DO THAT!” red flushes out of Chadwick’s face, rich and poor—eat together. city where faces change color completely same cost and color. his running back fumbles, and East Coach Scott Chadwick (above), who has a 124-75 record in 17 The public address announcer starts the from one neighborhood to the next, few On Fridays, though, if you don’t mind, Meck returns the ball for a touch- years as a high school football they’d rather talk about football. A coach, conducts his pregame ceremony by calling names, cheerleaders groups offer a better glimpse into inte- down. The coach tosses his arms speeches on a hill behind first, then the football team, in order of gration than this team. Myers Park has 35 win tonight would boost the Mustangs’ ning in Charlotte’s Memorial Stadium in the air as the scoreboard flashes the the locker rooms. Before the speech, the players—including jersey number. The band plays a few notes white players and 32 black players on the standing for the North Carolina High against neighboring private school new deficit, 14-0. In the second quarter, quarterback Jack Davidson (eye black) and Jamal Watson (towel for each person called. An assistant coach roster (along with one player who is mixed- School Athletic Association 4-AA play- Charlotte Country Day. Chadwick had no standout linebacker Ben Norris, whose around neck)—take a few quiet walks up and puts his hand on Watson’s race and one who is Asian). If you measure offs—the biggest and best high school idea what kind of team he had then, and dad is the president of the booster club, moments to think. neck. “It’s OK,” the coach says, “I got you.” success simply by wins and losses, the football tournament in the state. A loss wasn’t sure what he’d need to do to bring tries to make a tackle with his right arm In coaching, there’s no telling what trouble awaits. On Senior Nod. Chin out. No big deal. results are inconclusive. Myers Park has a would push them down among the lowest together players who come from such but has it ripped backward. He stays on Night, Chadwick and his staff Strut. The announcer introduces him. 6-4 record going into tonight’s game, not seeds in the region. diverse backgrounds. One boy has a heart the field for five plays before coming off to are forced to come up with a plan to replace standout junior He says that Watson is a cornerback, that so bad and not so good. But if you listen Since beating out 109 applicants for the surgeon for a father and another is the have it checked. A trainer puts pressure on linebacker Ben Norris (opposite page) after Norris tears his he’s been on varsity for three years, and to them in the locker room and at practice head-coaching job two years ago, Scott son of a former NFL player; others don’t his shoulder, just where it meets his chest. right labrum. that he plans to play football for a Division I and at the lunch table, you’ll hear a team Chadwick has tried to establish consis- claim a father at all. Eleven weeks after “Ahhhhh, shit!” the 16-year-old shrieks. school next year. And finally, “Jamal would of teenagers who aren’t afraid of conver- tency in a program and group of kids that that opening night, the coach still doesn’t There’s a piece of cartilage that reinforces like to thank his mom and sister for being sations that many adults fear. They talk sorely need it. Despite being one of the know.

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