Copied!
Jai Vier Robinson walked to the podium in front of the Shaw Stadium football field and glanced at the hundreds of people smiling in his direction.
Robinson, the quarterback of the Shaw High School s football team, was standing a few feet away from a flat spread of dirt with 10 shovels dug into it. Behind the dirt was the field, which had patches of grass grown several inches high and was in need of maintenance.
Robinson didn t want to look back at it. We had to play on that field. We had to practice, said Robinson, a junior. We didn t have water. (Our coach) would have to buy us water. We had no weight room, and we d lift weights on the field.