Not Left Out in the Cold

Terps' Scott Uses Father's Desertion as Motivation to Succeed

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. -- Sometime before noon today, somewhere inside the visitors' locker room at Clemson's Memorial Stadium, Maryland running back Da'Rel Scott will sit, earphones on, listening to upbeat gospel music, and think of the comforting support he received from his mother and two brothers while growing up in a two-bedroom apartment near Philadelphia.

As kickoff draws near, Scott will then make an abrupt switch, blasting the edgy hip-hop ode, "Still Got Love for You." The song, about succeeding despite an absent and troubled father, has become his anthem. His thoughts will then turn to the father he barely knows, the one who deserted the family when Scott was 8 years old. A usually suppressed rage will begin to coarse through him, building steadily before being unleashed on the football field.

"I am always going to have anger because of how he did me," Scott said. "It is always going to be there. It is not going away. No way at all."

Maryland fans know Scott as the blazing running back who ranks fifth nationally in rushing yards per game, an emerging star capable of scampering through holes in an eye-blink. What most don't know is that Scott believes his success is possible only because of the nurturing and support of a village of six, a support group that led him through two decades of trauma and abandonment, neglect and loss.

"Da'Rel has had a lot of little tragedies," said Mike Shaw, Scott's former youth football coach who has mentored him for more than a decade. "But he has definitely had a strong foundation around him."

There was Scott's strong-willed mother, his primary inspiration. There were two older brothers, former college athletes seven and eight years older who provided a standard to which to aspire and who consoled an apoplectic Da'Rel the day his aunt was brutally murdered. And there were three other influential figures: the football-loving cousin who tries to attend every Maryland home game; the former youth football coach who counseled him after the death of a close friend; and the high school athletic director who paid for the senior trip he otherwise couldn't have afforded.

"They are a big part of my life," Da'Rel said of his six-member inner circle. "That is what gets me going every day, just thinking about them, what they helped me with and got me through."

Da'Rel does not know the whereabouts of Lee Scott Sr., who was unable to be reached for this story.

When Da'Rel was 8 years old, Lee Sr. left the family, a combination of his choosing and the insistence of Da'Rel's mother and brothers. It began with an argument between Da'Rel's mother and father. His oldest brother, Lee, intervened and told their father, " 'Don't do anything to my mom,' " Da'Rel said. "And then they went at it. And then there was just a whole big thing with him and my brothers. And he just walked out. Just left. . . .

"I remember that day like it was" yesterday, Da'Rel said. "Just seeing him with my own eyes; I saw him leave that day. It just hurt."

Though his support group was in place, he yearned for a relationship with his father. Time after time, he said, Lee Sr. would schedule a time to hang out with his son and never show, crushing Da'Rel.

"I'm just sitting there bawling my eyes out like, 'What's going on?' " Da'Rel said. "He just kept letting me down. Just day by day, I was thinking, 'I need a father figure in my life.' "