beautiful words Mr. Dungy

You are one of my favorite people. I met you some years ago and will always remember how the students related to you when you visited Spring Hill Elementary School in Hernando County. Thank you for being real. Thank you also for the autograph that you gave a friend of mine for me. I wish the best for you and your family. God bkess.

I was born and raised in Brooklyn New York (Bedford Stuyvesant), until age 17. the schools did not have programs for exceptional children when I was attending.  The school leadership did not even know what was “wrong” (?) with me.   When I finished my homework in class I became bored and would end up causing a disturbance in class or fighting.  Mom had to come up to the school many times during the years to deal with my behavioral problems. 
Mom always attended the PTA meetings, but could not find the solution to my problems.  Temper and anger were issues.  I used to get into fights when angry. In the 8th grade I got into a fight with a student that pulled my chair out from under me and I hit my head on the hard wood seat when I fell.  I was able to grab a pencil and stab him in the forehead after he began a “bear-hug” that was choking me.  Three days later, the cops showed up at school and I almost went to jail; mom showed up at school.  Later that day we were at the Precinct with the detectives and I sat in front of a “holding cage” where they put the crazy arrestees.  I knew then and there that I did not want to go to jail.  This temper almost got me killed in a fight in my neighborhood where I called myself defending my mother’s honor.  “Had the knife gone a quarter inch deeper, you would not be here.”  The emergency room doctor said.  I got thirteen stitches (deliberately placed to leave a scar) and a daily chewing out by mom because my brother got a fractured jaw for warning me to run from the gang and was on a liquid diet for two months.  It didn’t matter that I was almost killed; it was my fault and I should also have suffered the broken jaw. I went into the Coast Guard to “grow up” and get a handle on my temper and to avoid the trouble in the streets.  The first day in boot camp I got into a fight with another sailor who refused to respect me.  I was beginning to think I’d made a mistake in signing up.  The fighting did not stop there; one day we were in line on the main street in front of the cafeteria waiting to go in for chow.  When I passed by another shipmate, he made a racial slur and before I could stop I had punched him out.  The platoon leaders thought he passed out from the sun and he went to the medical section (he never told them what happened).  There were other fights with shipmates who did not like me and I was concerned because my response in these encounters was so explosive; like spraying a shipmate who was attacking me in the kitchen with scalding hot water.  Needless to say the fight resumed in the barracks just before it was time to turn out the lights.  …Soon after being transferred to “Iwo Jima”, I met another black petty officer (he and I were E-4) who was a “Machinist Mate” and we conversed from time to time.  One day he told me I was a “hurt’n baby.”  As his remaining time on the island continued to diminish, he would tell me how “short” he was and then point at me and say. “Hurt’n.”  When I asked him what he meant he said. “You’ll find out.” 
While at “Iwo” my supervisors did not try to help me improve my electronics skills. I did not receive on the job training to improve existing skills or to learn new ones.  Most of the menial tasks, digging trenches, every one degree, to lay wire for a ground system, cleanups around equipment rooms and standing 4-hour watches each day were assigned to me.  One day in December, after working more than 12 hours digging trenches in the hot sun, I relieved the “watch” so he could go and eat.  I did not write on the weekly chart because I was dirty and could complete that later.  My relief came back after eating and I went down, showered and went to bed because I had the midnight watch. I was in a deep sleep when a seaman knocked on my room door and told me I was wanted in the “timer room” immediately.  I asked him to tell them I would be there in a few hours and let it wait till then.  The response was NOW!   
I went up there in flip flops and a t-shirt and was shown a weekly chart that we put dots on and connected them with a line.  I was ordered to connect the dots for the relief I made at dinner time (something that could have waited till I relieved at midnight).  I immediately grabbed the heavy steel chart table to keep from swing on the senior petty officer that initiated this.  While I was adding the information, he constantly nagged as I reviewed my readings and connected the dots.  When I was leaving the timer room, this same person made a nasty remark to me and the next thing I knew, I had him by the throat with his feet off the floor choking him.  In my rage I wanted to choke the life out of him, but a moment of clarity told me choking the life out of him was not the answer; I let him go and returned to my room until it was time for the midnight watch.After the watch I was allowed to sleep-in till 1000 hours.  I was asked to stop in and see the commanding officer.  I did not know it at the time, but he looked and acted like “James T. Kirk” (Star Trek).  Anyhow, he told me that he had a report from the supervisor on my action last night.    He also told me that the former commander had told him that I felt I was being discriminated against.  He then told me he thought I was nothing but a trouble maker and there are ways to deal with troublemakers.  “If we were on the ocean you could be lost at sea.  Here, you could get hurt “boon docking” (hiking in the brush), or you could fall off a cliff out in the woods.”  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; the commanding officer of a military establishment was threatening my life!  I wanted to pop him in the face, but knew that would only get me a room at Leavenworth prison.  He then told me he did not want to see me in his office again or he would bust me down to nothing and to get out. 
I did not return to my room, but went down to the lower antenna array feeling loneliness, anger and sorrow.  Who could I turn to?  I began to run to reduce the tension and fear I felt.  I was worried that I would loose control again and next time seriously hurt or kill someone.  I could not trust myself to retain control when angry.  I’d just finished one lap and was about to run another when the image of the Japanese cannon at the bottom of the cliff flashed into my mind and the thought to run as fast as I could and jump…  instead, I simply fell to my knees and began to cry.   I could not remember the last time I cried.  This problem was beyond my control and I COULD NOT TRUST ME TO CONTROL ME.  I did not know what to do.  I did not have anyone I could trust; no one to talk to, all alone.
A thought came into my mind to ask GOD, but I immediately dismissed it because I could not return the favor (live up to whatever HE wanted).  I continued to sob and heave think of the sheer agony of trying to manage my emotions.  Then the thought came to me again; what about GOD?  Then I said.  “GOD if you exist, please get me off this island sane, without killing anybody, and without loosing any parts of my body (I used my fingers to count the three conditions).  Thinking that I needed to do something for HIM I said.  “I don’t know how, but if you show me the way; I’ll know it.”  Immediately this tremendous peace came over me; it was uncanny.  I actually began to think my problems weren’t so bad and I would make it off that island.  Understand this, up to that point I never knew of any prayer being heard or answered in my life. … today I work with at-risk youth in Central Florida prisons… 
We need to meet.