Moving the Chains at Oak Hill
Detention Center's Football Team Given a Chance to Play Outside As a Way Toward Rehabilitation

By Eli Saslow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 23, 2006

Terrell McDonald shuffled toward the van, a rusted chain clanking against his polished Nike cleats. With no mirror available, the 16-year-old had stood before his reflection in a window in the gymnasium of the Oak Hill youth detention center, meticulously putting on his uniform. He wore a black do-rag and an Everlast undershirt that hugged his torso. He had tucked a folded white towel into the front of his football pants, and he compulsively ran his hands across the fabric to smooth wrinkles.

The shackles ruined his outfit, which bothered Terrell more than the chafe of metal around his hands, chest and ankles. "How can I get my shine on wearing this?" he said. "Y'all are making me look like a clown on my big day."

Terrell climbed all the way to the back of the van, surrounded by guards and teammates. He had not left the District's juvenile detention facility in Laurel since January, but he'd earned this trip. Terrell captained an Oak Hill football team fractured by neighborhood rivalries and a revolving roster. He had threatened to quit several times during the season, sometimes persevering only for this moment: the team's first road game, a D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association junior varsity semifinal played earlier this month at H.D. Woodson.

Two days earlier, Terrell's football coach, Rodney Henderson, had pulled the captain aside to emphasize the significance of this trip -- and to ask for help. Oak Hill, long regarded as one of the most dangerous and decrepit juvenile centers in the nation, had rarely entrusted its offenders with this kind of opportunity. That Terrell and 18 teammates traveled anywhere represented a shaky step in a new effort to emphasize rehabilitation.

"If anybody runs, if anybody tries to escape, there goes everything we worked for," Henderson told Terrell. "There goes this football program. There goes trust. If anybody runs, we'll come back to Oak Hill and it's going to be like coming back to straight-up jail. Don't let that happen."

The van drove past Oak Hill's decaying red housing units, past two 25-foot fences of snarled barbed wire, past several hundred acres of overgrown land, and out past the strip malls and housing developments of Laurel. Terrell stared out the window. Even fast-food restaurants fascinated him. And as the van approached Woodson in Northeast Washington, Terrell stood up from his seat and issued a command that sounded more like a plea.

Don't run, he said. We've got too much to lose.

Unconventional Strategies

During 20 years spent coaching football to juvenile offenders, Henderson, 46, has witnessed his share of disasters. The 2006 season started with many of them.

The coach suspended three starters after they beat up another resident during a fight between rival neighborhoods. The team ran short on equipment, with only 23 jerseys and 17 pairs of football socks for about 30 players who regularly attended practice. Players from rival Anacostia housing projects occasionally refused to block for each other.

A week into the season, Henderson gathered his players, ages 14 to 18, for practice and told them to form a circle. This, he explained, was The Pit. Any two players who had a beef, Henderson said, could step into the middle of the circle with their pads on and battle over a football for as long as they liked. "Take your anger and frustration and release it on the field," Henderson told them. "I'm not dealing with this territory violence, homey thing." More than a dozen players rotated in and out of the circle, wrestling for almost an hour.

Coaching at Oak Hill requires unconventional strategies, Henderson said. He has worked as a managing officer, athletic director and football coach at Oak Hill since 1986, but he hardly looks hardened. He wears academic glasses, and his long dreadlocks frame a handsome face. His coworkers call him a pretty boy; his players call him Bones, an old high school nickname. Henderson happily responds to either.

Henderson teaches a version of football unencumbered by complicated plays and boring strategy. At Oak Hill, even fourth and 22 is what Henderson calls a "go-for-broke down." The Tigers never punt. They run 10 to 15 trick plays a game -- double reverses, halfback passes, flea-flickers and whatever else Henderson whimsically diagrams on the sideline. Still, the Tigers have never finished a season with a losing record.

"Teams are terrified to come down here and play us," Henderson said. "If you want to see the heart of your team, bring them in here. Let them play inside the fence. That's intimidation right there. That fence is worth at least a touchdown each game."

Coolidge made the 25-mile trip to come inside the fence on a Tuesday afternoon in late September. Thirty-five junior varsity players and four coaches boarded a bus Oak Hill had sent for them, whitewashed with bars covering the windows.

After arriving at Oak Hill's gatehouse, sophomores DaMonte Jones and Michael Hutcherson and their teammates handed their helmets and shoulder pads to a guard, who passed the equipment through an X-ray machine. A security officer patted down the players to search for drugs or weapons and wrote their names in a visitor logbook. Four officers ushered Coolidge players through a gate, which closed behind them with a screech.

"I feel like I'm in a movie," Jones said.

"Yeah," Hutcherson said. "A horror movie."

Oak Hill scored on its first three offensive plays and took a 42-0 lead into halftime, but mutiny percolated on the Oak Hill sideline in the third and fourth quarters. Players argued about problems that would become endemic during the Tigers' regular season, even though they often won easily with a team of older, more experienced players facing junior varsity squads of freshmen and sophomores.

Against Coolidge, every player wanted to start. Every player wanted to score touchdowns. Even Terrell, the captain and running back, had a gripe.

"Bones, come on, man! Put me in there," Terrell said, stalking the sideline in the third quarter. "Let me shine, man. I need a couple touchdowns."

"Sit down," Henderson told him. "It's 42 to zero. You don't need nothin'."

Terrell pursed his lips, shook his head and threw his football gloves to the ground.

"Fine," he said, talking to nobody in particular. "But I'm about to catch a new charge. It's called bashing the coach over the head with a football helmet."

Cold Surroundings

Terrell became team captain partly because he was Oak Hill's only three-year starter, a dubious achievement. He arrived at the detention center as a 14-year-old in June 2004 and stayed until his release in November 2005. He returned on a new conviction less than three months later, well in time for a third football season. Because he's a juvenile, his record is sealed and details of his crimes are not public record. Terrell, his attorney and his family consented for his name to be used in this story.

"I'm basically growing up here," Terrell said.

He had done his best to fashion some sort of home out of Room 9 in the 8A unit, a bright purple building on a dark corner of Oak Hill's property. About 20 boys live in the unit; the Oak Hill facility as a whole usually houses about 100 boys. The boys in 8A spend their free time in a common room furnished with three heavy chairs and a dilapidated Ping-Pong table. The bathroom runs short on hot water, and the toilet stalls have no doors. Guards monitor the showers through a window.

A steel door opens into Terrell's room, which looks identical to most of Oak Hill's bedrooms. His single bed is bolted to the floor and covered with a weathered gray blanket. Terrell decorated his cold, concrete walls with dozens of pictures and letters, which constitute much of his contact with friends since he is only allowed two 10-minute phone sessions each week.

Pictures of Terrell's mother, as round-cheeked as her son, sit on the desk. A half dozen girlfriends or former girlfriends cover the dresser. Terrell's 3-month-old daughter decorates the wall. He has met her twice, but he isn't sure how to spell her name. "Me and the mother don't go together no more," Terrell said.

Terrell earned attention from peers and corrections officers during football season because of his playful boastfulness. Before Oak Hill games, he greeted the captains of opposing teams with trash-talk. "Nice to meet you," he told two Anacostia players in October. "Sorry the next four quarters are going to be nasty for you. I'm guaranteeing y'all four touchdowns."

Terrell, hampered this season by a sore hamstring and a sprained ankle, rarely delivered on such promises. But when he did, he marked the occasion grandly. After scoring on a two-point conversion against McKinley, Terrell flexed his muscles and screamed, 'Yeah! I told you so. I told you so." He continued to yell and assume various muscle-man poses for almost a minute, until a referee penalized him for delaying the kickoff.

He loved to play to crowds, even scarce ones. A few dozen Oak Hill juveniles usually attended home games, and they sometimes chanted "juvenile delinquents" as the Tigers ran onto the field. Terrell waved his hands wildly to encourage them.

Terrell is thick at 5 feet 10 with ordinary speed, but hopes to play linebacker in the NFL. He also has considered a career as a professional boxer. "I like to hit things," Terrell said. "I think about the things I went through, and I just take everything out when I hit a person. If they have a visor on their helmet, I think about trying to crack it."

He has worked hard to positively redirect his passion. Terrell attended a leadership seminar on behalf of Oak Hill. He joined a mentorship program and made honor roll for each of the last three semesters. Locked in his room at night, he likes to write poems. Can't somebody tell me why/young people have to go through struggles/and it's like they have their heart in one hand and their soul in the other/but don't know how to juggle.

Terrell's mother and 20-year-old sister came to Oak Hill during designated visiting times every two weeks this fall, and they begged him to stop throwing away his potential. Sometimes, he heeded their advice. During overtime of a game against Anacostia in October, Henderson called timeout and ran onto the field to strategize before the most important play of his team's season: an Anacostia two-point conversion attempt. Oak Hill needed a defensive stop to make the playoffs.

"I need your focus now more than ever," Henderson said. "This is it. Anybody have anything to say?"

"Where's the water boy?" one player asked.

"When can I play offense?" asked another.

"Y'all need to shut up and think about what's going down right now," Terrell said. "I'm tired of all this other [stuff]. This is our house. We can't lose in our house. Somebody better make a play."

Then Terrell broke through the line of scrimmage and made the game-saving tackle by himself.

Travel Risks

When Oak Hill corrections officers heard the Tigers would play at Woodson, they joked about a frightening possibility: What if an Oak Hill player broke free for a long touchdown run and just kept running, cradling a football through the city streets in his uniform?

"Some of our people are actually terrified of that," said Vincent Schiraldi, a former activist who became director of the city's Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services. "When you have a staff that for decades has experienced nothing but bad things and more bad things, what do you think they're going to expect? These are not people who want to take risks."

Schiraldi took charge in 2005 with plans to overhaul Oak Hill, a facility that he once said was unworthy of kenneling his dog. He created a Shakespeare reading and acting program and community service trips out of state. The goal: allowing Oak Hill's boys to gather experience outside the fences.

So when Oak Hill advanced to the semifinals and earned a chance to go off grounds? "Hell yes," Schiraldi said, "we're going." Oak Hill joined the DCIAA JV league -- the facility does not field a varsity team -- a decade ago but has had a football team for about 25 years.

The Tigers had made it to the DCIAA final in 2004, only to forfeit for fear of taking 20 players outside the gates. Schiraldi granted the team's request to leave for the final in 2005, but Oak Hill left several players behind because of rumors of an escape plot.

This time, Schiraldi promised all-out support. He paid staff overtime to provide extra security, and he invited the players' families, attorneys and judges to attend the game.

"These kids get goodies from crime," Schiraldi said. "Crime comes with money. It comes with prestige. Unfortunately, it comes with respect. We can't just tell them, 'Don't do that.' We have to say, 'Do this. Get your goodies from this.' And for some kids, that's going to be football."

Henderson thanked Schiraldi for his support and then wondered, privately, if a trip to Woodson might prove reckless. The fence around the Woodson field stood only three feet high, and parts of it had fallen. Woods shielded the back of the field and neighborhoods guarded the front -- both plausible escape routes.

"I can't really say," Henderson said, "but I'd guess it's 50-50 somebody tries to escape."

On Nov. 7, Henderson gathered his players in the gymnasium at about noon. The Oak Hill staff brought out two cardboard boxes filled with shackles, and they restrained the teenagers one at a time. For many of the players, shackling had become routine during transportation to court. In the gym, one player jokingly tried to jog with a chain around his ankles. Another attempted -- and failed -- to catch a football between his tight handcuffs.

Almost 30 staffers boarded the bus for Woodson, and others tried to sneak on to escape a regular afternoon at work. The staffers joked and laughed for 40 minutes, begging the driver to stop for lunch at a fast-food restaurant. But Tyrone Johnson, head of security, demanded their attention when he stepped to the front of the bus as it approached Woodson.

"I can't think of a worse place for us to play," Johnson said to the staff. "This whole field is a hazard. I'm going to have every one of you keeping watch from a different spot on the perimeter. And I don't care if it's rain, shine, snow or hail. You stay in your spot."

'Prison Ball, Baby'

Woodson resembled a crime scene. Three police cars sat on the track, with their lights flashing. Oak Hill officers surrounded the field, some of them dressed like spectators as a disguise. Allen Chin, the DCIAA's executive director, paced behind a goalpost. "Usually, for a JV game, I don't even notify school security," Chin said. "Now we've got 50 people securing this place."

The Tigers fell behind 8-6 in part because players suffered from sensory overload. Terrell stared at teenage girls in the stands and looked into the neighborhood to point out friends' houses. Meanwhile, the offense fumbled three times and defensive backs slipped in the mud.

Late in the second half, the magnetic pull of a close game provided its own escape. The staff -- even those undercover -- crept closer to the field. Oak Hill, still trailing by two, drove 60 yards downfield on its last possession. With two seconds left and the ball on the 6-yard line, Henderson called timeout. "Let's bust it up the middle with Terrell," Henderson said. But Terrell had other advice: That's what they're expecting, he said. Let's mix it up.

Henderson called a trick play. His quarterback pitched the ball to the tight end, who then passed to a wide receiver standing wide open in the end zone for the winning touchdown. Correction officers rushed onto the field. Oak Hill players shoved and tackled each other in an impromptu mosh pit. "That's prison ball, baby," Terrell yelled. "That's how we do it down at Oak Hill."

The Tigers would exult again after an easier win in the DCIAA title game a week later. But their semifinal celebration was a burst of euphoria -- and it lasted less than a minute.

Johnson, the head of security, herded players back to their vans. He pulled out the boxes of ankle cuffs. Henderson watched as an officer shackled Terrell.

"Come on, man," Terrell said. "You still don't trust me?"

"It's not about that," Henderson said. "I don't want to do this. I'd like to go hang out, take you guys for pizza. But there isn't any choice."