Arlington high school football players see that police care
Each week during the summer and twice a week during the season, Arlington police detective Brian Jones changes out of a coat and tie and into a T-shirt and shorts for workouts with the Arlington Martin football team.
No football drills, not anything like that. But he lifts weights with them, does conditioning and shoots the bull.
He’s not there to get in shape. A quick glance is all that’s needed to see he’s in plenty good enough shape, having maintained many of the habits that come with being a defensive lineman at Texas Tech a decade ago.
Rather, Jones’ time with the Warriors is a vocation, a mission of calling to do all he can to make sure there is never another Carl Wilson.
Jones is a member of the collaborative effort being waged by the Arlington school district and Arlington police department called the Coach 5-0 program. Jones at Martin is one of a team of executive mentors from the police department on every football team in the Arlington school district and the Mansfield schools within the city’s limits.
The officers are there not for police enforcement, but rather to mentor and build relationships with kids and their families. In a little more than a year, the program has become instilled, so much so that every player in the district wears a “Coach 5-0” decal on his helmet. Though piloted in football, the hope is that the program spreads to every team.
I think I’ve built solid relationships with the kids and the coaches. They can come to me with anything. Any questions. I just try to be there.
Arlington police detective Brian Jones
Their efforts are designed to be proactive, to get ahead of the issues in communities that often go unaddressed by society and are ignored until it comes to a head: mental illness, addiction, broken and dysfunctional families. None of those things have a police nexus yet inevitably become connected.
As Dallas Police Chief David Brown now famously said during the tragedy in Dallas during the summer: “Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve.”
But more than that, the Arlington police are on Arlington campuses not to make their professional lives easier but to safeguard the potential afforded by birth.
“I would tell you every police chief has echoed the sentiments that there are so many social problems that go unaddressed, but that doesn’t mean they go away,” said Arlington Police Chief Will Johnson. “And when they don’t go away, the tension from the problems escalates.
“This program is specifically designed to help us reduce the amount of interactions for non-law enforcement related issues so that people don’t get pulled into circumstances that divert them from the full potential that they have.”
Simply put, they care.
‘Devastating’
Carl Wilson was a Martin High School football player and by all accounts “at-risk,” the term used to describe many kids who are vulnerable to delinquency and falling away from conformity in community. As one coach described it “there are some the shell is a little more difficult to crack than others.” That was Wilson.
Like for so many at-risk kids, football and sports became his vehicle for motivating him to beat his vulnerabilities. Once completely foreign to him, he learned the positivity that comes with the structure and discipline of athletics, the accountability that comes with being a teammate and carrying himself well.
“He was doing it. He was so drastically different three years down the road than that first day we met him,” Martin coach Bob Wager said. “He was set to graduate. He was going to play football at the next level. I felt Carl was one of the guys that we as a program — coaches, players, teachers — we had a positive impact on his life.”
That didn’t mean the vulnerabilities had been completely pressure-washed away. One January day of 2015, during his senior year, the 18-year-old and another Martin student, a gang member, according to testimony, had an altercation in the school cafeteria. The two agreed to fight at a car wash.
Wilson and a friend showed up to the car wash, as did the gang member and other members of the Trill Fam gang. At some point, prosecutors said Devin Holland, 21, stepped through the crowd that had gathered and shot Wilson. When Wilson fell to the ground, Holland stood over him and shot him at least twice more, according to affidavits.
“It was devastating. Just absolutely devastating. And it still is,” said Wager, about the crime in which Holland was sentenced to 30 years in prison. “I dream about it still. He’s still a person that we talk and think about. I don’t know if I have the vocabulary to say how heartbreaking that was for everybody involved.”
It was personal for Johnson, the chief, too. Addressing Arlington school district coaches in August, the chief spoke of Wilson as if he were his own: “I had a high school student murdered.”
Through tragedy, though, seeds were planted, not only to preempt tragedy with teens but to create better relationships with teens, particularly some black kids who are untrusting of police. Wilson’s murder was only a few months after the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., and four months before Baltimore.
Another tragedy
Later that summer, Christian Taylor, a former Mansfield Summit football player, was killed in an encounter with police at an Arlington car dealership. Taylor was an inspiration for the Coach 5-0 program as well. His encounter with police was linked to a psychedelic drug found in his system that is known to cause distorted perceptions, agitation and hallucinations.
Wager, through the facilitation of another teacher at Martin, met with Johnson. That meeting spawned meetings with Arlington athletic director Kevin Ozee, who eventually gathered football coaches throughout the district.
“You can hear it when the chief talks, his heart for kids,” Ozee said. “How do we mentor kids and try to change for the positive how kids view police officers and their role.”
Coaches across the district were immediately on board.
Johnson said officers at the schools talked to coaches about what their needs were. That of course varied from school to school. Otherwise, there was no real plan other than to “just show up,” which they did starting in September 2015.
The chief said that though the program, officers and coaches have identified and helped homeless issues, poverty, gang and criminal activity involving parents. Transportation issues have been addressed, and aid given to kids struggling with grades, “Not because they didn’t have intellectual ability but because of challenges outside of school.
“Being able to address those issues has produced an avenue for them not to lose out on opportunities at school,” Johnson said.
Johnson speaks most proudly of a student who was at risk of losing an athletic scholarship because of choices she made. Officers helped mentor her with her coaches. She’s in college and playing sports.
I know the impact it has made at other schools because coaches talk about it. They gush about it. Those guys gush about their guys, and I think I got the best one.
Arlington Martin coach Bob Wager
‘Just try to be there’
During the season, Jones, the detective in Arlington’s west division, lifts with the team and he’s on the sideline every Friday night.
“Coach Wager brought me in and introduced me to the guys and it was on after that,” said Jones, an all-state player and part of two state championship teams at Everman High School before a career at Texas Tech from 2004-08. “I think I’ve built solid relationships with the kids and the coaches. They can come to me with anything. Any questions. I just try to be there.”
It’s easy to see during a conversation how devoted Jones is to the Coach 5-0. Another officer, John Truvia, works with the Martin freshman team. “I love football, and I love kids,” Jones said. “I love the coaching staff up there. The kids are our future. That’s where you start. It’s hard to change someone who’s grown up. You have to reach them when they’re young to build those relationships.”
Jones joked that he “stays in his lane” as far as the football part. He’s not there as a coach. He’s a mentor.
“He’s very family oriented,” Martin defensive end K.T. Allen said. “He treats us like brothers. We do the same for him. He’s a big brother to us. We take what he says very seriously.”
Said linebacker Jorge Hinojosa: “We feel like he honestly cares about us. He’s easy to talk to.”
Ozee said one thing Arlington coaches and officials found over the past year was that kids will tell the officers things they might not otherwise share with their coaches, an observation Hinojosa agreed with, saying: “Definitely. He’s always available.”
Like the other coaches in Arlington, Wager, too, gushed about his guy, Jones, doing things “beyond my wildest imagination.” Not just “reaching out,” but also going into “their homes and finding out what that environment is like so he can build a deeper and greater relationship. Let’s face it, you won’t have an impact if you don’t have a relationship.
“He has taken his knowledge and used it and applied it to make a tremendous impact, one that I could not, we as a coaching staff could not, possibly do on our own because of his background and what he does for a living and the things he has seen.
“He has altered the lives of kids for the better. I’ve witnessed it. I’ve watched it.”
This story was originally published September 7, 2016 at 11:29 AM with the headline "Arlington high school football players see that police care."