Football as a life-saver.

• Author: Turner, Vernon M.
• Position: Athletic Arena

IT HAS TAKEN ME almost 20 years to become "okay" with exposing myself and my family s most personal life events. I am the oldest of five--two brothers and two sisters. My mom passed away when I was a sophomore in high school and my stepfather (who was 25 years older than my mother) passed when I was a freshman in college. I never met my real father; I was told that he died in jail. For some intuitive reason, I always knew my biological father did not die in prison.

I remember when I was about 10 years old: I arrived home from school, placed my books on the dining room table and went to the bathroom. When I opened the door, I saw my mother shooting herself up with drugs. I screamed "Why do you keep doing that to yourself?" She then told me to come in and close the door; tears started to roll down her cheeks (although she continued to shoot up). She began telling me a story that took place when she was 18 years old. She said one evening while walking home from her high school band practice, two men grabbed her, covered her mouth, and dragged her on top of a roof where a third man was waiting--all three raped her. A few weeks later she was pregnant. She never mentioned to me ever having an abortion. Looking back now, at times I felt like my mom hated me; she never said it, but I felt it just by the way she looked at me sometimes with such cold eyes. I realized that I entered this world under horrific circumstances: I was the product of a brutal rape.

In all honesty, with everything my mom did and went through, she still found a way to keep the family intact. She saw to it that we had a roof over our heads, food in our mouths, and clothes on our hacks. She always made sure we were "okay" before doing what she felt she had to do. My morn, without a doubt, made the most important decision of my life; she gave birth to me. In my eyes, she was an incredible lady. She was perhaps the best mom I could ever ask for.

I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. (in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of the borough, which was 98% African-American) on Jan. 6, 1967. My mom was a heavy drug user and prostitute. In fact, that is how she met my stepfather. I guess he saw something in her other than a good time. He asked her to move in with him (on Staten Island, N.Y., which was 90% Caucasian). I think I was about seven at the time and my brother was around four. As the years went by, three of my siblings came by my white stepfather. My mom and my stepfather fought almost on a...