The saga of LaTravis Hawkins* (Part 4)
Editor's note: In December 2007, we ran a two-part story on a kid from Chicago named LaTravis Hawkins*. Scoop Jackson gives an update on what's happened to LaTravis' life since then.
*We've changed the names of the young boy and his mother at the center of this story in order to protect their identity.
Searching for LaTravis Hawkins: Part I | Part II | Part III
When I finally got at LaTravis, the only thing I ask him about is school. Damn everything else, nothing else matters. I asked what he was going to do. He said, "I'm not goin'."
"He won't go back to that school," LaTravis' mom, Temeika, concurred.
I put in calls, called in favors, everything. With the help of God and every other spiritual being of a higher power, a last-minute opening came up at a school where a friend of mine is the principal. He said, "If you can get him here, we'll take care of him. Just make sure he and his mother are here on the first day."
Done deal. I relay the message and info to LaTravis' mom. Tell her everything is set up, all she has to do is show up, we'll worry about the paperwork later.
"Does this school have a basketball program?" she asks. "Because that's all he's interested in. That's all he cares about."
I tell her that the school had a basketball team that he could play on once the season started. It was a lie I had to tell; I too knew her son.
Everything was set for LaTravis to begin to erase last summer and begin to release this magnetic pull the streets had begun to have on his life. I was finally able to see some light at the end of the dark tunnel; the end of his saga had finally found its beginning. But when they showed up for the first day of school, God (or Chicago Public Schools) had another plan. The birth certificate Temeika brought with her to register him proved that LaTravis was not 12 going on 13. Instead, he was a 14-year-old kid who is going to turn 15 in March. The school couldn't do anything for him. He couldn't enroll.
"There's nothing we can do with a 14-year-old kid in a class full of 11-year-olds," the principal told me. My word to him, "I had no idea."
No idea that he'd failed once before -- in third grade five years ago. It's a lie he'd kept hidden while running game on everyone. It was part of his technique for survival.
No wonder his skill set on the basketball court was so advanced for someone his age. No wonder he has always been able to "embarrass" kids 2-3 years older, 5-6 inches taller, 20-30 pounds heavier, "hold his own" against all-area high school seniors and D-II prospects.
It took us almost three more weeks to convince LaTravis and the school he was originally enrolled in to let him return on a trial basis in the seventh grade. If he showed he could do the work, he could stay in the class. If not, we'd all have a problem.
LaTravis got down to business. Realizing that the window on his own life was closing, he went to school, was getting solid grades and began showing major interest in the non-basketball side of his life. Everything was finally coming together, then ... Temeika's boyfriend came back and moved the family to Indiana.
That was last year. I had limited contact with LaTravis. He'd come in and out of Chicago; visiting his grandmother, visiting his crew, visiting the streets. I couldn't just roll up on him in the neighborhood anymore, I couldn't keep tabs on him.
The texts began to come through. One more depressing than the next.
Me: Watch the game tonight on ESPN 2. Two of the best players in the NCAA will be playing. Patty Mills and Steph Curry.
LaTravis: OK. But like, I wanna get in Hyde Park (HS). With my friends. I'm in 7th grade and that's why I don't go to school. I am 15.
Me: Are you in school now?
LaTravis: Nope. Nope.
Me: So u just at the crib chillin' or in the streets everyday?
No response.
A week later.
Me (to LaTravis): Where u at?
No response again.
Three weeks after that.
Me: Hey LaTravis! What r u doing?
LaTravis: Nothing. I want to hoop somewhere.
Me: Tell me where and when and we can make it happen.
LaTravis: I need sum basketball shoes.
Me: Cool. We need to hook up.
LaTravis: Okay, but I need sum money.
That was May 18, 2009. The last time I'd heard from LaTravis Hawkins. I told him I had some money and sneaks for him, but he never showed up to get either. Every time I talked to his boys, they say the same thing: "We ain't really seen him." That's how this past summer went.
A few weeks ago, before this school year opened, while I was dropping off supplies (backpacks, pencils, notebooks, etc.) to a couple of the other members of the crew, I spot LaTravis on the corner of Ellis and 81st Street in Chicago. The Pirates cap he had on his head rode low, jeans even lower. No one had seen him for most of the summer -- he himself had been laying low.
I wanted to ask him why he lied, but I knew the answer. I wanted to ask him if his mother had gotten him in school, but I knew the answer. I wanted to ask him everything, but I knew all of his answers. Our conversation for the first time was quiet. A head nod replaced the hug.
Over the summer, I'd run into a friend of mine who was an assistant coach at a high school in Chicago. He asked me about LaTravis. I gave him the rundown, told him the saga. And with every odd going against him, my friend said, "I have two spots open on the basketball team. We'll get him in an academic program to help him adjust, it doesn't make a difference if he's graduated from grammar school or not. We can work around that [LaTravis being 15]."
I felt like crying.
"If we have to use basketball to get him back into school," my friend said, "then that's what we'll do. Just let me know. I'll hold it open until I hear back from you."
That was in July. I had put over 35 calls and texts to LaTravis to tell him the news. Told him about it the day I saw him a few weeks ago. Told all of his boys that if they see him or talk to him to have him call me, told them to tell him that it's urgent.
School began last week. I still have not heard back from LaTravis Hawkins.
Scoop Jackson is a columnist for ESPN.com.
