Tyree Nelson

Dear #Destinationfamily,

We are living in a time of unparalleled violence and disruption, on our streets, in our homes, and in our schools. It’s quite the challenge not to get caught up in it all, and god willing not to experience it personally. I have a story to tell you, and an ask for your support, participation, and contribution. Something is weighing heavily on my heart this morning, and I just can’t stand by and do nothing. This story is about a good kid (kind, caring, honest, and mega-talented), who got a bad deal. A young man that should be getting all the breaks in the world at this point in his life, yet suffering tremendous hardship for the bare necessities because he has been misjudged, mistook, and buried in the court of public opinion. His name is Tyree Nelson.

Tyree was a star athlete in high school (an understatement), with countless opportunities to play football at the collegiate level, who made a split-decision to help others in a time of violence and crisis (a fight on the field after a game), and his reward for being selfless, for putting himself in harm’s way, and for just trying to help in the chaos surrounding him at that moment in time, was not the acknowledgement, nor appreciation, or recognition for his heroic efforts you would imagine, but rather the opposite. He was shamed, judged, and ostracized as an instigator of the violence, a participant in the disruption, a “troublemaker”, and he lost literally every college scholarship offered to him his senior year in high school (several full rides to play football). Even after viewing the countless videos and tapes of the fight that clearly showed he was trying to break it up, that he was separating students from each other, and protect others, the label of “social disruptor” had already been stitched to his back with all the coaches and universities, and there was nothing anyone could do to rectify it. It was too late – the damage had been done.

I was on the phone with him last night and his voice was shaking like branches in a tree. When I asked him what’s going on, he told me he was walking home from dinner with some friends, and it was freezing cold rain. I assumed his place was maybe a few blocks away, only to find out it was a 7-mile walk. He told me he couldn’t afford a car, and I asked him why he didn’t catch a ride with his friends, and he told me there were too many in the car already, so he zipped up his jacket and hit the pavement. My heart broke into pieces so small they slipped through my fingers. How could this be the fate of such a good-hearted kid, a fierce friend to my son, with unlimited athletic gifts and talents the likes seldom seen at the high school level? This simply cannot be fair?

He was raised in Atlanta by a single mom and 3 siblings. She struggled to make ends meet, yet always provided for her children. Tyree’s football prowess was to be his way out, his brass ring, and he had dreams of taking care of his mom someday and paying it forward for all the hardship she endured raising him and his siblings (and I believe he had enough raw talent and natural abilities to do it!) Life is hard enough for our youth nowadays, to have to add injustice and unfairness to their lives at such an early age. I want to show him that people actually do care for him, and that his actions that night were honorable and just. I want to give him but a small token of generosity and good fortune and restore his faith in humanity. Will you join me? In all the years I have known him, he has never once asked me for a single thing, and in all the years I have been your captain, I have never once asked my members for something like this. I want to surprise him with a solid, stable, good running car, and I will record his reactions for you all to watch, to watch what it’s like when you do a single random act of kindness, for no other reasons than to balance the scales of someone else’s life. If we have it, this is what it’s for, and if we don’t, then share this story far and wide for others that might. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

-Dave