Trey Porter

A few years ago, I was working with one of the boys in our facility who had finished our program and was getting ready to leave.  We went over his aftercare plan and discussed ways he could improve his chances of success.

I asked, “Do you have an adult you can talk to about problems?  You know, somebody who cares and can understand and help.”

“Coach Porter,” he answered, a grin spreading across his face.

I smiled too.

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Back in the days when my younger boys were playing football, one kid on the field caught my attention.  Not particularly tall, he was beefy, but the kid could carry the ball down the field like a demon possessed.  He didn’t so much break tackles as slip them.  Once he got into the open, he rarely got caught.

I asked my son, Andy, who it was.

“Trey Porter,” he said.

“Is his father Jesse?”

Andy nodded and said, “And his mom’s the school nurse.”

I knew them both.  Good hard-working people.  I’d gone to school with Jesse and considered him a friend.  Still do.

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I got to know all the kids who played sports with my boys.  Some of them stood out for the wrong things, like getting benched for misbehaving or kicked off the team every year.  Others impressed me for better things.  Trey was one of that group.  He made good grades, worked hard at practice, and was naturally gifted in athletics, especially football and track. 

He loved the camaraderie and excitement.  On the gridiron, anytime he was on the sidelines, he was leading the team and fans in a cheer to get everyone pumped.  I can still hear him yelling, “Ma-a-a-alden!  Gree-e-e-en Wave!”

Trey competed in several events on the track team, mostly sprints.  One season in particular, he was on the 4×100 meter relay with three other state-ranked runners.  They dominated every race they were in that year, breaking the school record early that season, and topping the new record a couple times too.  Many of their races were won by such a huge margin that Trey, the anchor man, was often nearly halfway down the track before the second place team made their final handoff.  I was covering sports for the newspaper by that time and I have more than a few photos of Trey grinning from the absolute joy of bringing home another win for his team.

By his junior year of high school, Trey was a football star, carrying the ball across the goal line like he owned it.  There was that wide smile.  One of my favorite photos was taken against the East Prairie Eagles.  Several Eagles are chasing him and he is hurdling the last man to dive at him, just as he crosses the goal line.

Even through the effort of outrunning and hurdling tacklers, there is that smile.

Yes, Trey has a zest for life and a fearlessness that you just knew would take him somewhere – anywhere he really wanted to go.

Well Trey wanted to be a coach.  He loved sports and he liked working with kids.  After he started coaching at one of the area schools, I got word that he took an interest in kids who had a tough start on life.  I heard that he would help any of his kids who needed it…like the kid at the beginning of this post. 

By the time that kid came through our facility I had heard from several other boys about how Trey looked out for them and helped them if there was anything important they needed or talked to them if they had problems big or small.  Every single kid I talked to had the utmost respect for him.

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Trey moved on a few years back and was soon ensconced in the head (football) coaching and athletic director’s posts for the Rough Riders at Roosevelt High School in the greater Saint Louis area.  He took over a program that had gone 2-28 in the previous three seasons.  Yes, that’s less than one win per year.  Porter had to go to another school to scrounge football equipment for his kids.  To make-do with a small weight room, he had to rearrange the team’s weightlifting schedule so that everyone could get a workout.

Trey turned the program around.  Parents, students, and faculty were all overjoyed.  Porter was lauded for his accomplishments.

At the beginning of the 2019 season, at the district football jamboree (held at a different school) a brawl broke out.  Four people were shot, including an eight-year-old girl who died from her wound.  Others were injured, including two of Porter’s Rough Riders. 

Trey postponed the next practice to gather his athletes and talk to them about violence.  He asked, by a show of hands, how many of his players had attended a funeral for a kid their own age.  Every hand went up.

“That ain’t normal, but in St. Louis, it’s been normalized,” Trey said in a TV interview.  “We didn’t want to just move forward without going over what happened, proper protocol, proper procedure when those type situations occur,” he said.

Everyone agrees that inner-city violence is a horrible thing that needs to change.  But most people sit around and say, “Somebody needs to do something.”  While others actually do something.

Trey did something.

Speaking of his athletes, he said, “I want them to know that somebody cares about them, I want them to know they have somebody here for them and I want them to continuously grow as men and just be successful at life,” he said.  After East St. Louis football phenom Jaylon McKenzie was killed last school year, Coach Porter came up with a plan.  “At that point, I told them ‘you need to call, text or huddle message me every night – Friday, Saturday, Sunday’ – because those are the days I know I’m not going to see them the next day,” said Porter.

And that simple attempt to make a positive difference cost Trey Porter his job.

You see, Trey’s idea to help his players stay out of trouble was a violation of Saint Louis Public School’s social media policy. It says employees may not friend students on social media or use electronic media to communicate with students without approval from administrators and parents.  Many school systems have adopted something like that.  The idea is to protect teachers and students from possible inappropriate interactions. 

Did I put that nicely enough? 

Such social media policies are, for the most part, a good thing.  The problem is when we try to apply a simple solution to a complex issue, we risk, for want of a better metaphor, throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  By banning every faculty from interacting with every student on social media all the time we also eliminate the good that some people can do. 

Think about that.  A rape counselor, a sexual abuse counselor, or a child abuse counselor, heck, even the police department, can’t do their valuable jobs without communication.  Sure we don’t want child molesters and drug dealers to have free access to kids via social media, but, I don’t think we have to hamstring the former groups to control the second group.

Yes, I believe in a ban on “friending” of students by teachers and vice versa, but I don’t think there is NEVER a situation where SOME exceptions should be made.  Rather than immediately firing Coach Porter, he should have been brought before the school board for questioning.  They should have given him a chance to say why he violated the rules.  Porter himself has said that he may have violated the letter of the law, but he was upholding the spirit of it.

The firing of Coach Porter came as a shock to his athletes and their parents.  One mother, Latasha Johnson said if it wasn’t for social media, Coach Porter couldn’t have helped her son when he needed it the most.  “When my son lost his father, Coach Porter saw on social media and came to my home to comfort my son,” she said.

Jawuan Delancy, a wide receiver on the football team, said, “He was a father figure to me. He was role model to me and showed me how a real man is supposed to be, and look and act.”

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Well, Trey’s athletes and other students at Roosevelt decided to back their coach just as he had supported him.  On Monday, Oct. 21, 2019, more than 200 of them walked out of class and marched to the district’s administrative offices in downtown St. Louis.  They were met at the door by superintendent Kelvin Adams.  He ushered some of them inside and they conferred on the situation.  Media was not allowed in to cover the discussion.

I wonder if the school superintendent learned anything.  I haven’t been able to find out what they decided, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed and my prayers said.  I hope the school board gets it right.

I’m rooting for YOU, Trey!

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