Richmond high school football coaches aim to change negative stereotypes

Richmond's John F. Kennedy High School football team is experiencing one of their best seasons in nearly 30 years. 

The team is 10-1 with a playoff game Saturday.  Their leader is Richmond native George Jackson Jr.  

"When people see our school and people see our city, the first thing they think is negativity," says Jackson. 

He's in his first year as head coach and is trying to change the negative stereotype of the city and the school. 

The district only requires players to have a 2.0 to play. But not this team, a 2.5 is needed to take this field and their grades are checked weekly.  Because for Jackson this team is more than just his players they're his family.  "All day long, we family. We family blood couldn't make us any closer right now," says Jackson. 

For some members of the team, their fellow players are the only family they have. 

"My mom died. She got shot in San Francisco in 2008. My dad died last year end of last year to lung cancer," says Kennedy High Junior Malik Garner. "It's been rough I lost a lot of people in my family, a lot of people from my neighborhood to the streets," says Kennedy High Junior Eugene Gaines. 

Gun violence is an all too common occurrence for these young men.  "Merely 1,300 feet from here is a war zone.  There’s been a lot of folks that have been killed right over there in John F Kennedy Manor," says community organizer and football team volunteer Rodney Alamo Brown.

"We've been right here in practice and see people lose their lives right across the street in practice in broad daylight," says Jackson. 

Richmond's homicide rate has gradually increased over the last three years. 11 people were killed in 2014, 21 in 2015 and 23 so far this year. 

Senior Ryan Robinson knows firsthand about losing someone.  February 4, 2014, is a day he'll never forget.  It’s the day Robinson lost both of his brothers to gun violence in Vallejo. 

"My second oldest brother was just riding a go cart and somebody pulled up on him and shot him.  My brother went to Vallejo to my aunt's house to be with the family and when he went to the store he got killed too," says Robinson.

Losing loved ones aren’t the only thing some of them have in common. 

"We've got kids who are homeless, kids who have been shot a lot of kids who have been in jail.  Everyone on this team has a story," says Jackson.  A story they're more than willing to share.  In hopes others don't follow their footsteps. 

"I'm on ankle monitor," says Kennedy High Junior Demarcus Bernstine.  "I was in and out of jail like two times.

The first time I did a month. The second time I did 10 months," says Gaines. 

"I was scared for my safety because I was getting threatened if I were to walk around Central, I would get killed. So I got caught with a gun," says Kennedy High Junior Marcus Day.  Still, with what may seem as all odds stacked against them.  This group is united around a common bond football.  As their hard work is paying off, the last time the team won a league title was 1988, well before the players were even born.  But that all changed this year when they went 9-1 in their regular season winning a district title, the team's only regular season loss was to El Cerrito, but that defeat propelled the team.  As they've overcome challenges on and off the field and their coaches will be there every step of the way. 

"Some of them have strayed away and now they have come back and what the coach has done is he's actually brought them into a circle to teach them about what the word team is, together everyone accomplishes more," says Brown. 

"If we don't prepare them for the future right now, then I've done wrong, I've failed them.  Because I didn't teach them and I had the opportunity to," says Jackson. 

After seeing and going through things many will never understand.  These young men have or are in the process of turning their lives around. For them and their loved ones who in some cases are no longer here. 

"They're just looking down at me and they want me to do better and that's what I got to do," says Garner. "I got a baby I'm taking care of that's going to keep me out of trouble too," says Bernstine.  "We all we got. We all we need," says Robinson. 

That slogan includes their coaching staff. All here say they respect and look to in times of need.  "They do an excellent job coaching first off, but they're not just coaches, they're mentors," says Kennedy High Senior Akeli Nelson. 

"I came back from like having a 1.5 to over a 3.0, getting A's and B's doing good, helping out little kids when I can, working at the soup kitchen when I can just to give back what I took," says Gaines. 

These young men asked that you not judge them for what they did or who they were but for what they're doing now on and off the field that is changing their lives for the better.