ESPN RISE

Orlando Iles considers himself lucky.

The 18-year-old Los Angeles High junior spent his summer recovering from a gunshot wound to the leg and was in danger of missing the entire football season as a result. But when you've experienced what Iles has over the last six months -- burying three friends and escaping a near-death experience of his own -- a bullet to the leg doesn't seem so bad.

On a mid-June night, Iles and friend Chris Taylor were hanging out on a street corner close to home around 10:30, minding their own business. Out of nowhere, a car pulled up, the window rolled down and somebody opened fire.

The first shot whizzed by Iles' right ear, missing his head by inches. The second one went through his right leg, but he was able to run to a nearby house and call the police.

Taylor wasn't as fortunate.

He was hit in the side and couldn't run away. A second shot hit him in the head. As the assailants left, Iles came running back to get his friend.

"I picked him up and he was still alive, but he was losing too much blood," Iles says. "I carried him to his house and told his mom and she came out screaming."

Shortly thereafter, Iles' teenage friend was dead.

Iles still can't shake the terror of that night. He has trouble sleeping and often suffers flashbacks. The Fourth of July was the worst, as every exploding firecracker evoked vivid memories of the gunshots that killed Taylor.

"It's like a movie that keeps playing back in my head," he says.

Not like Iles needs reminders about the dangers of life in the inner city. In addition to the physical scar on his leg and the mental scars of seeing his friend killed in front of him, Iles saw enough pain last spring at LA High to last a lifetime.

A week before Iles was shot, 20-year-old Raymond Mouton -- a former quarterback at the school and older brother of current junior linebacker Rayvione Mouton -- was shot nine times and killed.

And three months before that, there was the murder of Jamiel Shaw. Jamiel's case made national headlines as the perfect storm of senseless tragedy. The 17-year-old LA High junior was a superstar football player, with major college programs like Stanford and Rutgers recruiting him. His mother was serving in Iraq. And his killing seemed cruel even by gang standards.

Despite what the lawyer for Jamiel's accused killer has said, LA High's star running back had no apparent gang ties. Talk to his teammates, coaches, teachers or LA High administrators and you hear the same thing: Jamiel was a smart, funny, engaging kid with a megawatt smile and an even brighter future.

His death rocked the community and changed the way his classmates thought of simple things like getting to and from school.

"For a while after, I was scared walking home," says 2008 LA High graduate and football captain Massoud Shariffi. "It's scary that someone can be here one minute and gone the next."

Jamiel Shaw Sr. is, for the first time, watching the LA High football team practice without his son. He talks about the 18-year plan he devised for Jamiel, the one that would get him out of his neighborhood and on the path to a better life.

"It was my way of making sure he was successful," Jamiel Sr. says. "He had 10 months to go. He saw the future. He was getting letters from colleges and he knew what was meant for him."

It's a messed-up world when a father feels the need to devise a strategy for his son to reach his 18th birthday. But for too many kids, that's the sad truth. In that way, Jamiel was lucky -- a lot of kids in his situation don't have a father around who will work two jobs and still find time to drive his son to practices and games the way Jamiel Sr. did.

But somehow, it still wasn't enough.

Jamiel was walking home from the mall shortly before dusk on the night of March 2. His father offered to pick him up, but Jamiel wanted to save him the trouble. Three doors from home, while on the phone with his girlfriend, Jamiel noticed a car pull up. According to reports, his killer jumped out, asked where he was from (code for what gang he was in) and, before Jamiel could say he wasn't in a gang, opened fire.

From inside his house, Jamiel Sr. heard the gunshots and raced outside to find his son dead on the ground.

"You feel cheated," Jamiel Sr. says. "Seventeen years, all that hard work. All the homework and 17 years of camps and clinics, being a good kid, never been arrested or suspended from school, what was all that for?"

And it doesn't ease his pain when people tell him his son is in a better place. "That might work for your grandma, but not when you're 17," he says.

Still, Jamiel Sr. hasn't given up. He set the tone by wearing a white tuxedo to the funeral, which was a celebration of Jamiel's life and a call to stop the violence. And he has dedicated himself to changing legislation he feels will prevent other parents from going through what he and his wife have.

While that keeps him busy, it doesn't dull the pain. Since Jamiel was killed three doors from the family's house, just coming home from work is a reminder of his death. The Shaws could move, but part of Jamiel Sr. thinks he'd be abandoning his son if he did that.

If that isn't bad enough, Jamiel Sr. continued to receive recruiting letters for his son throughout the summer. And shortly after the murder, Jamiel Sr. got an e-mail saying Jamiel's online highlight tape they ordered was ready.

There are times when he convinces himself Jamiel is still alive, until he catches a glimpse in the mirror of the R.I.P. Jamiel T-shirt he wears every day.

Rayvione Mouton didn't think he could feel any worse than he did after Jamiel died. He was one of Jamiel's best friends on the team and served as a pallbearer at his funeral.

That would have been more than enough tragedy for him. But just three months later, his brother was killed -- 25 days after turning 20 and five months after becoming a father.

In Mouton's mind, football saved his life. At the time his brother was killed, Mouton was working out at LA High. If he hadn't been, there's little doubt he would have been with his brother. And even though he was the younger brother, as a linebacker he always tried to protect his quarterback sibling.

"It's hard to get pumped for the season after something like that, but my brother always told me that this was my year," says Mouton, who has his brother's name, date of birth and date of death tattooed on his left forearm. "So I'm dedicating the season to him and Jamiel."

The entire team is playing with Jamiel on its mind this year. In addition to the No. 4 patch they'll wear on their jerseys, the players all seem to have a favorite Jamiel story.

For senior center David Salazar, it's the time they ran track together as freshmen. Salazar was running the 800 and, as a lineman not used to running long distances, was struggling to finish. Jamiel bolted off the sidelines and ran the final 300 meters with his buddy.

For Mouton, it's the time he locked his keys in his car. Even though Jamiel doesn't drive, Mouton called him immediately because, well, when you were in trouble, you dialed Jamiel.

And playing with Jamiel in mind means finishing what he started and staying out of trouble.

"I stick to doing my thing -- football, class and track," LA High junior running back Terrell Dolberry says. "I don't really go to parties and I try to stay safe because reality is scary.

"For us, sports is the thing that keeps us safe,"he adds. "When we come here, we're family. Coach Williams isn't just our coach, he's our father on the field."

Hardy Williams has seen a little bit of everything since growing up in South Central in the 1950s. A 1964 graduate of Dorsey (Los Angeles), Williams began teaching and coaching at LA High in 1974. In his time at the school, he's witnessed the rise of the gang culture in the '70s, the plague of crack cocaine in the '80s and the brutal violence that accompanied both.

It wasn't easy growing up in L.A. when Williams did, but back then, fights were usually limited to fists or the occasional blade. One of Williams' best friends in high school was stabbed during a fight following a basketball game and it was a huge story on the news. Today, it probably wouldn't get more than a passing mention.

"That was with knives," Williams says. "Now it's guns and it's a totally different game."

Williams can't make sense of the random gun violence that plagues innocent bystanders these days, but there's one thing he knows for sure.

"I wouldn't want to be a teenager today," the coach says. Despite the tragedy that has engulfed his program in the last year, Williams knows sports are one of the few things that can keep kids off the streets and in the classroom. It's the reason he routinely puts in 16-hour days at LA High, alternating between teacher, coach, chauffeur, psychologist and father figure. The problem is, for every Hardy Williams there are 10 gangbangers.

Williams has lost players to the streets, but more often than not his program serves as an alternative for kids who might otherwise be seduced by the fast money and status gangs and drugs can offer.

People like Cornell Ward keep Williams going in the face of so much pain. Ward played for Williams in the early 1980s, before becoming a drug dealer for several years. But Williams never gave up on him, and today Ward is a regional director of the NFL's Junior Player Development program.

There are similar success stories all around LA High, a school with friendly students, dedicated teachers and an atmosphere largely devoid of gang violence. Unlike the stereotype of a public school in the inner city, LA High is located mere blocks from affluent Hancock Park, where Los Angeles' mayor lives and homes routinely sell for seven figures.

Somehow, though, the school's football program has seen more than its share of untimely deaths. In 1972, LA High football player Robert Ballou Jr. became what is widely considered to be the first murder victim of the Crips. Later that decade, another football player drowned while on a recruiting visit in Hawaii.

Jamiel's death, however, hit Williams harder than any he's seen in his 34 years at LA High. It's probably because in the months before his death, Jamiel's work ethic was really starting to equal his talent. He was never a bad kid -- it was just that he had so much talent, he could be the best on the field without going all out. But once the recruiting letters started pouring in and Jamiel saw a scholarship as a legit option, he worked tirelessly toward taking the next step in his father's 18-year plan.

"The light was just starting to go on," Williams says.

His voice trails off before he can finish the thought.

Somehow, the LA High football team goes on.

On an early-July day, the team takes the field against Manual Arts (Los Angeles, Calif.) in a passing league game. The play is ragged, but it feels good to be competing again. After all that's happened, the gridiron is a refuge.

Mouton and Dolberry continue to do all the right things. They've become emotional leaders of the team, setting the tone on the field and in the weight room. They study hard and are already making college plans. But through it all, there's the haunting reminder of their best friend who did the same thing and still couldn't make it.

"If somebody like Jamiel's not safe, then no one's safe," Mouton says.

Ryan Canner-O'Mealy covers high school sports for ESPNRISE.com.