After Dual Tragedies, Oklahoma Player Turns to His Mother, Not Football, First

"Dominique stepped into the man role quickly," Martin said. "He just assumed he needed to be strong for me. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have made it past my husband's death."

Both derived comfort from the nightly routine they kept. After Martin got off work and Franks arrived home after practice, he would stand in the kitchen talking to her while she prepared dinner. Later, they would watch television or game films. Occasionally, they would talk about Bo.

"She didn't really have another life besides me, and I didn't really have another life besides her," Franks said. "We just had each other."

There was one new element after Martin's death. Franks's biological father began to take a more significant role in his son's life. In the summer of 2005, when one of Bartee's friends was killed in a motorcycle accident, Franks said, things changed dramatically. Bartee began going to church. He told his son he wanted to become a new man. He told him he would, finally, be there for him. The two started talking daily over the phone about football, grades, college choices. This was different for Franks, and he liked it.

"I finally had my father back," Franks said. "I thought, 'This is what it's supposed to be like.' "

But about a month after Bartee's transformation and a week after Franks's 18th birthday, Franks tried to call his father from the team bus after a game, but reached only voice mail. He tried, and tried again. Finally, he called his father's wife.

"Why are you calling me?" he recalled her saying.

"I was calling you to talk to my father," he said.

"You don't know yet?" she said, then handed the phone to Franks's grandmother.

"Your daddy is dead," she said.

Franks dropped the phone, then rode the rest of the way crying into the hood he had pulled over his head. When the bus arrived at the school parking lot, his mother was there to meet him. She told him his father had shot himself in his car, an act Franks could not fathom.

His teammates, now aware of what happened, gathered around and embraced Franks. They all prayed together in the parking lot.

Franks could not believe he would bury two fathers in three years. Before Bartee's casket was closed, Franks slid his two state championship rings onto his father's fingers. Then, he went straight from the cemetery to a tattoo parlor, where he had Bartee's nickname, "Pup," etched over his heart. After that, he said, he felt lost.

"Then I turned to my friend, the person I turn to the most, and she wouldn't let me turn my back on life," Franks said. "She has my back. I can guarantee I wouldn't be here now if it weren't for my mother."

Martin, who spoke by phone from her home in Norman, said she and her son literally grew up together, bonded by blood, their youth and, finally, heartbreak. She has taken care of him, and he has taken care of her. Given what they endured, she said, she feels relief and joy that he made it through with his values intact.

"It's just awesome," she said, "to have seen him grow into such a great young man."