Honolulu_Blue
01-22-2005, 11:58 AM
Good stuff here and something that seems to be amazingly rare when it comes to athletes (and I assume most men, but we just don't hear about it). Though the name, "Trey-veion", there's so much wrong with that I can't even start...
http://www.freep.com/sports/rosenberg/rosey22e_20050122.htm
MICHAEL ROSENBERG: Why this Detroit athlete did right thing <!-- endheadline -->
<!-- endheadlineb -->NFL's Foote tackles surprise role as dad <!-- endheadlineb -->
<!-- pubdate -->January 22, 2005<!-- enddate -->
<!-- SNIFFER 3: 2rosey22e 1/21/05 22:48:05 -->
<!-- headfield --><!-- TX -->
<!-- byline -->BY MICHAEL ROSENBERG<!-- endbyline -->
<!-- affiliation -->FREE PRESS COLUMNIST<!-- endaffiliation -->
<!-- endheadfield --><!-- TX --><!-- content -->
<!-- AG_BEGIN --><TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=5 align=right><TBODY><TR><TD width=250>http://www.freep.com/art/2005/jan/22/foote.jpg ARCHIE CARPENTER/Special to the Free Press
Steelers linebacker Larry Foote is the timekeeper as his son, Trey-veion, does math problems.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- AG_END -->PITTSBURGH -- They call it the "one-minute test."
Larry Foote, Detroit native and Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker, will write down 10 math problems. His 8-year-old son, Trey-veion, has a minute to get them right.
"Ready ... go!" Larry says.
Trey gets a look of unfettered focus on his face. Larry, sitting next to him at their kitchen table, smiles as he holds the stopwatch.
It is hard to believe, but just a few months ago, they hadn't even met.
For years, Larry Foote had heard rumors about a kid in Detroit who looked like him. He always laughed them off. Then a friend called to say that a woman wanted to talk to him.
She said Larry was the father of her 8-year-old son, Trey-veion.
Could this really be his kid? Larry was a 15-year-old at Pershing High in Detroit when Trey was born. He'd had a brief relationship with the boy's mother, Khalila Hammond.
<!-- AG_BEGIN --><TABLE cellSpacing=3 cellPadding=5 width=150 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=150 bgColor=#cccccc>HELLO, LARRY </TD></TR><TR><TD bgColor=#dddddd>Who: Larry Foote, Pittsburgh Steelers inside linebacker.
Height: 6 feet, 239 pounds.
Age: 24.
NFL: Third season.
College: Michigan (1998-2001).
High school: Detroit Pershing.
This season: Started every game for Steelers. Finished fourth on the team with 69 tackles. Also had three sacks and one interception.
Highlight: His big hit on Patriots quarterack Tom Brady (a former U-M teammate) led to Brady throwing an interception that the Steelers returned for a touchdown in their 34-20 victory on Oct. 31.
On taking care of his 8-year-old son, Trey-veion: "I had to get my son and be a part of his life. ... Any man that has a son ... I don't know how there are fathers in this world that don't want to be a big part of this."
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- AG_END -->When Larry got that phone call, he could have said it was impossible. Hung up. Blocked it out of his mind. He had not been contacted for eight years, and then all he got was one phone call from a mutual friend. There was no lawsuit, no demand of child-support payments.
But this was Larry Foote's one-minute test, and he passed. He said he would take a paternity test, and he wanted to meet the kid who might be his son.
Foote called his fiancée, Flint TV reporter Tara Edwards.
"He said, 'Remember when they were joking there is a kid out there that looks like me?' " Edwards recalled. "Right away, we talked about it before he even got the test back. He said, 'If he's mine, then I want him.' There was no dodging the issue. He wanted to raise him."
Eventually, Foote took the paternity test, but he needed it about as much as an owl needs glasses.
"Once I saw the boy," he said, "I pretty much knew."
Sunday afternoon, Foote will start for the Steelers against New England for a berth in the Super Bowl. Trey will be in the stands at Heinz Field. And when the game ends, they will head home together.
The three women with whom (Warren) Sapp has children have gone to court to seek child support, college tuition, medical coverage, life insurance and a healthy slice of the 30-year-old's assets. ... Sapp doesn't see the son and daughter in the paternity cases, according to the mothers' attorneys. He has asked a judge to ignore state guidelines for child support for the two children he had with his wife. He has hired top-notch lawyers to vigorously challenge all the women's petitions for support.
-- St. Petersburg Times
Aug. 23, 2003
"I do miss Detroit," Trey said. "I miss my family."
In Detroit, he lived with his mother and five siblings. That was a recipe for endless fun. But endless fun is not a recipe for success in life.
That's why Larry brought him to Pittsburgh, a move that Trey's mother endorsed. Their apartment is decorated in an Early 21st Century Bachelor motif, which is to say they could pack up and leave during a single commercial break. This does not seem to bother either resident.
Trey's bedroom is heavily into Spider-Man. There is plenty of food in the fridge and laughs all around. Oh, sometimes Trey cries when he talks to his mom, but he says he likes Pittsburgh now.
"It's still a little rocky between us," said Larry, 24. "When I was telling him something, here comes this manly voice -- he was looking at me like the Big Bad Wolf. He loves the video games, but when he got out here, he had to read every day. He had to go to his speech teacher. Homework on a regular basis. Eating vegetables. All he wanted to eat was buffalo wings.
"Here I am, I already took him away from his brothers and sisters -- he's already mad at me just for that. And I've got to sit there and tell him he's got to eat some broccoli."
For his first meal, Trey scooped the vegetables in his mouth, walked to the bathroom and spit them out.
Larry cracked up. That's exactly what he used to do.
"He's just like me," Larry said. "Whatever I do, he tries to do the opposite."
Trey: "I like the opposite way."
He is getting used to his opposite life. And although Larry said, "I ain't sitting here saying I'm the perfect father," he is far better at it than he might have expected.
He has surprised Edwards, who started dating him six years ago when they were students at Michigan.
"It's funny, because at times at Michigan, I was taking care of him," Edwards said. "He's a real dad. I've never had to tell him how to raise his son. I think he knows exactly what to do. Maybe it's instinctive. It's amazing."
Trey goes back to Detroit often, but now that he has a father and a better school, he goes as a different kid.
"Trey has learned a lot more responsibilities," said Hammond, Trey's mother. "When he comes to visit, he showed his brother what he learned as far as giving people respect.
"He's got a better education. He went from a 2.3 to a 3.0. He's learned a lot more in Pittsburgh. I do agree on that. I didn't think (Larry) was going to find time to squeeze Trey-veion into his busy schedule, but he did it."
(Former tennis star Roscoe Tanner) consented to take a DNA test, which revealed a 99.5 percent chance that he was the father. ... Nevertheless, he denied paternity on grounds that the DNA test was not conclusive enough. "He said that as a celebrity he was a target, and I believed him," says Charlotte Tanner (his wife). Eager to avoid bad publicity, Tanner finally agreed to a $500,000 out-of-court settlement, which at the time he did not have the means of honoring.
-- Sports Illustrated
Nov. 29, 2004
Without ever changing a diaper or installing a car seat, Foote suddenly found himself at a parent-teacher conference.
He was stunned by what he heard.
"They spoke highly of him," Larry said of Trey. "I was just coming to hear what I used to hear about myself. But it was the total opposite. They just love him, how well-mannered he is. Very polite. He helps other kids in his classroom."
Could this really be his kid? Larry grew up in both the Brightmoor neighborhood on Detroit's west side and near 7 Mile and Dequindre on the east side, which meant he could get in trouble in two neighborhoods. He said he "averaged five to 10 suspensions a year" when he was a kid, mostly for fighting.
And now his son was the teacher's pet? Larry left the parent-teacher conference and called his mother, Leslie Matthews, back in Michigan. He told her how well her grandson did in school.
"She said, 'Darn,' " Larry said. "She wanted me to get stuck with a little Tasmanian Devil. I got lucky."
Larry said he wasn't a big partyer, but he used to spend his nights "running the streets." Now he spends them at home, helping Trey with his homework. He has arranged for Trey to get speech therapy and teaches him to read, spell and do math.
Larry tries to teach Trey about football, but his son prefers basketball. He tells Trey to cheer for the Los Angeles Lakers (Larry's favorite team), but Trey sticks with his hometown Pistons.
And one other thing.
"I've got a lot to teach him about hating to lose," Larry said.
Trey: "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose."
Larry: "Who broke the joystick?"
Trey: "You!"
This is true. Larry was mad about losing on PlayStation 2. This genuinely bothered him. That's another reason he is so happy these days -- the Steelers are 16-1 this season, the best record in the NFL.
Larry: "You should never want to lose. Have we lost this year?"
Trey: "Yes!"
Larry: "We lost one time!"
Cherie Nicole Clark, formerly of Miami Beach and now a resident of Honolulu, filed papers in August in Broward Circuit Court asking (former NFL star Ricky) Williams to pay child support for her 14-month-old son. Clark, 23, claims that Williams is the boy's father. In a response Sept. 10, Williams denied having sex with Clark and denied he was the father. However, in papers filed Sept. 22, Williams said he and Clark had "an intimate relationship during the time that the minor child in these proceedings was conceived."
-- Associated Press
Oct. 9, 2004
"Any man that has a son ... I don't know how there are fathers in this world that don't want to be a big part of this," Larry said.
Last summer, Larry Foote got the news that most athletes dread. He admits he never planned for this, and he's not recommending this path to fatherhood.
But since finding out about Trey-veion, Larry has become a happy father, a better player and a prouder man. His contract is up at the end of this season, his third in the NFL; thanks to his breakout season, he probably will become a millionaire soon.
Sunday evening, his team can earn a spot in the Super Bowl. But if the Steelers fall short, Trey will remind him: Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
And what about the parties? What about running the streets? Doesn't Larry miss that? Doesn't he ever think about being an NFL star who doesn't have to be a father?
"Oh, no," Larry said. "I was one of the few in my neighborhood growing up that had a father that was in my life. A lot of my buddies growing up, they didn't even know their fathers -- they didn't know who they were. My father didn't live with me, but every weekend, me and my father were close. That's how I grew up.
"My uncles that I was close with, they were married and had kids. That's the only way I knew.
"I had to get my son and be a part of his life. My uncle Skip, him and his wife, they weren't fortunate enough to have kids. I couldn't turn back me having a boy, having a son. A lot of people in this world can't have kids.
"I knew it was a blessing."
http://www.freep.com/sports/rosenberg/rosey22e_20050122.htm
MICHAEL ROSENBERG: Why this Detroit athlete did right thing <!-- endheadline -->
<!-- endheadlineb -->NFL's Foote tackles surprise role as dad <!-- endheadlineb -->
<!-- pubdate -->January 22, 2005<!-- enddate -->
<!-- SNIFFER 3: 2rosey22e 1/21/05 22:48:05 -->
<!-- headfield --><!-- TX -->
<!-- byline -->BY MICHAEL ROSENBERG<!-- endbyline -->
<!-- affiliation -->FREE PRESS COLUMNIST<!-- endaffiliation -->
<!-- endheadfield --><!-- TX --><!-- content -->
<!-- AG_BEGIN --><TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=5 align=right><TBODY><TR><TD width=250>http://www.freep.com/art/2005/jan/22/foote.jpg ARCHIE CARPENTER/Special to the Free Press
Steelers linebacker Larry Foote is the timekeeper as his son, Trey-veion, does math problems.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- AG_END -->PITTSBURGH -- They call it the "one-minute test."
Larry Foote, Detroit native and Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker, will write down 10 math problems. His 8-year-old son, Trey-veion, has a minute to get them right.
"Ready ... go!" Larry says.
Trey gets a look of unfettered focus on his face. Larry, sitting next to him at their kitchen table, smiles as he holds the stopwatch.
It is hard to believe, but just a few months ago, they hadn't even met.
For years, Larry Foote had heard rumors about a kid in Detroit who looked like him. He always laughed them off. Then a friend called to say that a woman wanted to talk to him.
She said Larry was the father of her 8-year-old son, Trey-veion.
Could this really be his kid? Larry was a 15-year-old at Pershing High in Detroit when Trey was born. He'd had a brief relationship with the boy's mother, Khalila Hammond.
<!-- AG_BEGIN --><TABLE cellSpacing=3 cellPadding=5 width=150 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=150 bgColor=#cccccc>HELLO, LARRY </TD></TR><TR><TD bgColor=#dddddd>Who: Larry Foote, Pittsburgh Steelers inside linebacker.
Height: 6 feet, 239 pounds.
Age: 24.
NFL: Third season.
College: Michigan (1998-2001).
High school: Detroit Pershing.
This season: Started every game for Steelers. Finished fourth on the team with 69 tackles. Also had three sacks and one interception.
Highlight: His big hit on Patriots quarterack Tom Brady (a former U-M teammate) led to Brady throwing an interception that the Steelers returned for a touchdown in their 34-20 victory on Oct. 31.
On taking care of his 8-year-old son, Trey-veion: "I had to get my son and be a part of his life. ... Any man that has a son ... I don't know how there are fathers in this world that don't want to be a big part of this."
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- AG_END -->When Larry got that phone call, he could have said it was impossible. Hung up. Blocked it out of his mind. He had not been contacted for eight years, and then all he got was one phone call from a mutual friend. There was no lawsuit, no demand of child-support payments.
But this was Larry Foote's one-minute test, and he passed. He said he would take a paternity test, and he wanted to meet the kid who might be his son.
Foote called his fiancée, Flint TV reporter Tara Edwards.
"He said, 'Remember when they were joking there is a kid out there that looks like me?' " Edwards recalled. "Right away, we talked about it before he even got the test back. He said, 'If he's mine, then I want him.' There was no dodging the issue. He wanted to raise him."
Eventually, Foote took the paternity test, but he needed it about as much as an owl needs glasses.
"Once I saw the boy," he said, "I pretty much knew."
Sunday afternoon, Foote will start for the Steelers against New England for a berth in the Super Bowl. Trey will be in the stands at Heinz Field. And when the game ends, they will head home together.
The three women with whom (Warren) Sapp has children have gone to court to seek child support, college tuition, medical coverage, life insurance and a healthy slice of the 30-year-old's assets. ... Sapp doesn't see the son and daughter in the paternity cases, according to the mothers' attorneys. He has asked a judge to ignore state guidelines for child support for the two children he had with his wife. He has hired top-notch lawyers to vigorously challenge all the women's petitions for support.
-- St. Petersburg Times
Aug. 23, 2003
"I do miss Detroit," Trey said. "I miss my family."
In Detroit, he lived with his mother and five siblings. That was a recipe for endless fun. But endless fun is not a recipe for success in life.
That's why Larry brought him to Pittsburgh, a move that Trey's mother endorsed. Their apartment is decorated in an Early 21st Century Bachelor motif, which is to say they could pack up and leave during a single commercial break. This does not seem to bother either resident.
Trey's bedroom is heavily into Spider-Man. There is plenty of food in the fridge and laughs all around. Oh, sometimes Trey cries when he talks to his mom, but he says he likes Pittsburgh now.
"It's still a little rocky between us," said Larry, 24. "When I was telling him something, here comes this manly voice -- he was looking at me like the Big Bad Wolf. He loves the video games, but when he got out here, he had to read every day. He had to go to his speech teacher. Homework on a regular basis. Eating vegetables. All he wanted to eat was buffalo wings.
"Here I am, I already took him away from his brothers and sisters -- he's already mad at me just for that. And I've got to sit there and tell him he's got to eat some broccoli."
For his first meal, Trey scooped the vegetables in his mouth, walked to the bathroom and spit them out.
Larry cracked up. That's exactly what he used to do.
"He's just like me," Larry said. "Whatever I do, he tries to do the opposite."
Trey: "I like the opposite way."
He is getting used to his opposite life. And although Larry said, "I ain't sitting here saying I'm the perfect father," he is far better at it than he might have expected.
He has surprised Edwards, who started dating him six years ago when they were students at Michigan.
"It's funny, because at times at Michigan, I was taking care of him," Edwards said. "He's a real dad. I've never had to tell him how to raise his son. I think he knows exactly what to do. Maybe it's instinctive. It's amazing."
Trey goes back to Detroit often, but now that he has a father and a better school, he goes as a different kid.
"Trey has learned a lot more responsibilities," said Hammond, Trey's mother. "When he comes to visit, he showed his brother what he learned as far as giving people respect.
"He's got a better education. He went from a 2.3 to a 3.0. He's learned a lot more in Pittsburgh. I do agree on that. I didn't think (Larry) was going to find time to squeeze Trey-veion into his busy schedule, but he did it."
(Former tennis star Roscoe Tanner) consented to take a DNA test, which revealed a 99.5 percent chance that he was the father. ... Nevertheless, he denied paternity on grounds that the DNA test was not conclusive enough. "He said that as a celebrity he was a target, and I believed him," says Charlotte Tanner (his wife). Eager to avoid bad publicity, Tanner finally agreed to a $500,000 out-of-court settlement, which at the time he did not have the means of honoring.
-- Sports Illustrated
Nov. 29, 2004
Without ever changing a diaper or installing a car seat, Foote suddenly found himself at a parent-teacher conference.
He was stunned by what he heard.
"They spoke highly of him," Larry said of Trey. "I was just coming to hear what I used to hear about myself. But it was the total opposite. They just love him, how well-mannered he is. Very polite. He helps other kids in his classroom."
Could this really be his kid? Larry grew up in both the Brightmoor neighborhood on Detroit's west side and near 7 Mile and Dequindre on the east side, which meant he could get in trouble in two neighborhoods. He said he "averaged five to 10 suspensions a year" when he was a kid, mostly for fighting.
And now his son was the teacher's pet? Larry left the parent-teacher conference and called his mother, Leslie Matthews, back in Michigan. He told her how well her grandson did in school.
"She said, 'Darn,' " Larry said. "She wanted me to get stuck with a little Tasmanian Devil. I got lucky."
Larry said he wasn't a big partyer, but he used to spend his nights "running the streets." Now he spends them at home, helping Trey with his homework. He has arranged for Trey to get speech therapy and teaches him to read, spell and do math.
Larry tries to teach Trey about football, but his son prefers basketball. He tells Trey to cheer for the Los Angeles Lakers (Larry's favorite team), but Trey sticks with his hometown Pistons.
And one other thing.
"I've got a lot to teach him about hating to lose," Larry said.
Trey: "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose."
Larry: "Who broke the joystick?"
Trey: "You!"
This is true. Larry was mad about losing on PlayStation 2. This genuinely bothered him. That's another reason he is so happy these days -- the Steelers are 16-1 this season, the best record in the NFL.
Larry: "You should never want to lose. Have we lost this year?"
Trey: "Yes!"
Larry: "We lost one time!"
Cherie Nicole Clark, formerly of Miami Beach and now a resident of Honolulu, filed papers in August in Broward Circuit Court asking (former NFL star Ricky) Williams to pay child support for her 14-month-old son. Clark, 23, claims that Williams is the boy's father. In a response Sept. 10, Williams denied having sex with Clark and denied he was the father. However, in papers filed Sept. 22, Williams said he and Clark had "an intimate relationship during the time that the minor child in these proceedings was conceived."
-- Associated Press
Oct. 9, 2004
"Any man that has a son ... I don't know how there are fathers in this world that don't want to be a big part of this," Larry said.
Last summer, Larry Foote got the news that most athletes dread. He admits he never planned for this, and he's not recommending this path to fatherhood.
But since finding out about Trey-veion, Larry has become a happy father, a better player and a prouder man. His contract is up at the end of this season, his third in the NFL; thanks to his breakout season, he probably will become a millionaire soon.
Sunday evening, his team can earn a spot in the Super Bowl. But if the Steelers fall short, Trey will remind him: Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
And what about the parties? What about running the streets? Doesn't Larry miss that? Doesn't he ever think about being an NFL star who doesn't have to be a father?
"Oh, no," Larry said. "I was one of the few in my neighborhood growing up that had a father that was in my life. A lot of my buddies growing up, they didn't even know their fathers -- they didn't know who they were. My father didn't live with me, but every weekend, me and my father were close. That's how I grew up.
"My uncles that I was close with, they were married and had kids. That's the only way I knew.
"I had to get my son and be a part of his life. My uncle Skip, him and his wife, they weren't fortunate enough to have kids. I couldn't turn back me having a boy, having a son. A lot of people in this world can't have kids.
"I knew it was a blessing."