Teaching lessons on and off the field

• By RELMA HARGUS
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Dec 1, 2008 - Page: 1D - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Driving through a Baton Rouge neighborhood four years ago, Terry Boyd became unhappy with the view outside his car windows.

“I started seeing little kids hanging out on the corners. I don’t know, it just got to me.”

His goal became “to get these kids off the corners, to give them an alternative to the street life, to give them an outlet.”

And, to make staying-off-the- corner permanent, he wanted to help them learn the values and discipline he had learned through playing football as a youngster: “Respect for myself, respect for authority, respect for my parents.”

This is his third year to coach the South Baton Rouge Jaguars, a Louisiana Youth Football team for 7- and 8-year-old youngsters.

LYF is a nonprofit organization formed to provide urban youth with positive alternatives to the streets.

“The kids started flocking to us,” Boyd said.

This year, he had to stop when enrollment reached 50.

“We had to turn some away and that just broke my heart,” Boyd said.

LYF makes it possible for everyone who wants to play to do so and the boys joined another team.

The see-a-problem, solve-a-problem attitude tends to be a given with all the adults involved with the program.

The end of Daylight Savings Time means it gets dark earlier:
Parents and coaches turn on their cars’ headlights to light the field for practice.

Although they could have driven to a lighted field, Boyd said, transportation would have been a problem.