More Than Just a Football Game

Theodore Roosevelt - 27 Oak Hill Youth Center - 0

By Maurice Butler

It has often been said that football is a game of life. Well, the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Riders got a real good lesson when they played Oak Hill Youth Center for Boys on Saturday, September 20, 2008.

As the players from Roosevelt got off of the security bus, they were forced to line up in twos, got searched, and counted countless times by several security guards who barked out orders and refused to listen to pleas for anything. As the players quietly marched through the barbed wire gates, the eerie silence was deafening. They were supposed to be preparing to play a football game, but something more important was transpiring on this day. "Listen to those doors being locked," shouted one security personnel. "I hope I don't see any of you back down here unless it is to play a football game!"

Head Coach Daryl Tilghman, who is returning to the sideline after a brief retirement, had an opening on his football schedule so he decided to play Oak Hill. "For us, this is a gut check game and an opportunity to see where we are as a team," Tilghman exclaimed. "I didn't know what kind of team I would have this year so I didn't want to schedule a lot of out-of-town games. I also wanted to give my players an opportunity to see what incarceration was really like ...somebody telling you when you could eat and when you could sleep and where you have to walk...and not just what they see on television. I feel that our kids need to understand that when they make the wrong choices in life this could be their consequences."

Several of the Rough Rider players seemed to be taking in the whole experience in a reflective mood. "When I was walking through the gates I was thinking about my brother and my mother," linebacker Darin Drakeford reflected. "My brother has been down here twice and in jail twice. I try to make the right choices in my life because I have seen the pain my brother put my mother through and I don't want to put her through that again."

"I was excited when I first got here," stated a somber Chris McGhee, one of Roosevelt's five quarterbacks. "I've never seen a real prison before. I felt kind of sorry for the guys who are stuck down here."

The eerie silence erupted into more familiar sounds when the game finally started. Any jitters the Rough Riders may have had ended seconds after the opening kickoff. The Rough Riders responded to the hoops, hollers and shouts of what the Oak Hill players were going to do with an organized effort of controlled violence of their own (i.e. Rider football). The result of the game was never in doubt after Drakeford scooped up and returned a fumble 32 yards for a touchdown. McGhee added two touchdowns on passes of 11 yards to Lorenzo Fisher and 18 yards to Chris Kinney.

Fullback Ronnie Speight added another score and kicker Obed Gomez kicked three extra points making the score 27 - 0 before the game was ended prematurely just before halftime. The Riders were on Oak Hill's 20 yards line and poised to score again when upset players from Oak Hill charged the field in an attempt to get the Riders to participate in uncontrolled violence. After order was restored, the referees called the game because of the unsportsmanlike conduct of the Oak Hill players and fear that it would happen again.

The Rider players refused to retaliate knowing that an ejection would mean they could not play in the next game. Lesson learned...the choices you make have consequence

Head Coach Daryl Tilghman returns to the Rough Rider sideline after a two-year retirement.