Another NY Times article on Belle Glade...

JeffAtlanta

All-American
Aug 21, 2007
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Atlanta, GA (Buckhead)
Many similarities to the Louisiana article...makes me wonder if they are only seeing what they want to see.
I read the previous Louisiana article that many people here loved, but I couldn't really figure out what the point of the article was.

All I got from the Louisiana article was that youth football was big there and taken seriously - nothing revolutionary there. The same could be said for Texas, Georgia, Alabama or Florida - in both the affluent suburbs and the poverty stricken areas.

It kind of reminded me of the 60 Minutes segment on college football a few months ago. Kind of just meandered around.
 
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GulfCoastTider

Hall of Fame
That's a pretty fair view of Belle Glade. Down here that area is seen as the definition of poverty and lack of opportunity. Dismal doesn't cover it.
I spent some time in that area during the early 2000's.

I concur that the conditions in that part of the state are incredibly bad. A little to the east is Clewiston, which at least has some tourism associated with bass fishing on the lake. But even that place was pretty sick.

Clewiston is reasonably safe after dark. Belle Glade and Pahokee were off limits.
 

Maudiemae

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Oct 18, 2003
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West Palm Beach, Florida
I spent some time in that area during the early 2000's.

I concur that the conditions in that part of the state are incredibly bad. A little to the east is Clewiston, which at least has some tourism associated with bass fishing on the lake. But even that place was pretty sick.

Clewiston is reasonably safe after dark. Belle Glade and Pahokee were off limits.
The average southeast Floridian would not move there even if you gave them land with a great house, all taxes, homeowners insurance and upkeep free for a lifetime. Kids trapped in that kind of existence are danged serious about it when they see an avenue out and there really aren't many.
 

gman4tide

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Nov 21, 2005
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And in reading that, it makes me wonder...how in the world those "world class athletes" get to that point. If it is as bad as it is and they're having to catch rainwater to "survive"...how do those kids get the nutrition to grow to 6'4" and 200 plus pounds?? I have a soon to be 15 year old and he is trying to put weight on...but can't. And he gets several good meals a day. Say the same thing when I went to a little delta town in mississippi called itta bena. There isn't anything there...but great athletes and a high school football stadium. Maybe its that good country cooking? Had to be homegrown...no one there had a job outside picking season and ebt cards would only buy so much?
 

GulfCoastTider

Hall of Fame
And in reading that, it makes me wonder...how in the world those "world class athletes" get to that point. If it is as bad as it is and they're having to catch rainwater to "survive"...how do those kids get the nutrition to grow to 6'4" and 200 plus pounds?? I have a soon to be 15 year old and he is trying to put weight on...but can't. And he gets several good meals a day. Say the same thing when I went to a little delta town in mississippi called itta bena. There isn't anything there...but great athletes and a high school football stadium. Maybe its that good country cooking? Had to be homegrown...no one there had a job outside picking season and ebt cards would only buy so much?
Some of it's genetics. Some of it is good country cooking and an environment where things grow really fast.

I'm not kidding. There's no such thing as a "growing" or "gardening" season there. It's year-round. They're growing vegetables and livestock in Nov-Mar that we wouldn't dare trying to grow. And that soil is as rich and as black as anything you'd find in places like Tallulah or Itawamba.

But the truth is that many of these kids don't blossom into real athletes until they're in a college football program that's focused on developing 17-year old snot noses into full grown football players. It's the same in some of the poorer areas of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.
 

TommyMac

Hall of Fame
Apr 24, 2001
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Mobile, Alabama
I've read that the kids there actually chase down rabbits in the cane fields for food. Might explain why their 40 times are so good, they're not running for sport, they're running for survival.
 

gman4tide

All-SEC
Nov 21, 2005
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Flint Creek
I've seen them doing the rabbit thing on espn. You try growing into a prime athlete chasing and eating rabbits for food with greens and tomatoes. Just hard to see how they put the weight on like that.
 

bigjue24

Suspended
Dec 2, 2009
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Okeechobee, FL
I've seen them doing the rabbit thing on espn. You try growing into a prime athlete chasing and eating rabbits for food with greens and tomatoes. Just hard to see how they put the weight on like that.
I live in the town of Okeechobee. belle glade and pahokee are about 30 minutes from where I live. They are as poor as everyone says they are. it is also a really dangerous place. There is a corner store where 25 plus guys sit outside. I don't think there is enough money to get me to stop there.

The athletes are purely genetic. They are all from the same few families. The natural athletes these towns produce is insane. The problem is generational poverty many of these young men could play college sports but don't make it out due to grades or getting in trouble with the law. It is a really sad situation.

I know several nice families that have moved to Okeechobee from these areas in order to get there children out of the school system.
 

Padreruf

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Feb 12, 2001
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Randy Edsall found out how difficult it is to recruit in Belle Glade...

02/06/2013
Randy Edsall's most death-defying recruiting story ever
Maryland football coach Randy Edsall had never been chased out of a neighborhood by multiple people in pickup trucks while on a recruiting trip.

Well, until recently, anyway.

It's probably better to let Edsall take over from here on this tale straight out of "Deliverance" from his home visit to see defensive back Will Likely of Belle Glade, Fla.:

"I'm very, very fortunate to be sitting here after going down to recruit Will. We go down to West Palm Beach and I'm with coach [Brian] Stewart and we're going to drive out to Belle Glade to see Will that night. Brian punches in the address to Will's house.

"Believe me, I've been to Belle Glade many, many times. I've been to Pahokee many, many times out there and everything else. So we're driving. This is always one of those things: You go with an assistant coach and think 'OK, they've been there, they've taken the dry run, they know exactly where they're going.' All the sudden, we're driving and the GPS tells us to take a right here. I know that's not right because I've been down there.

"So we're driving up this road and it's leading us toward Pahokee and I said 'Brian, I've been down here. I'm just telling you, where we're going isn't where we want to be going.' We keep driving and he says 'The GPS says it's right up here in a couple miles.' I said 'OK, I'm just telling you, this isn't the right way.'

"All it is is sugar cane fields. There's no lights. It's dark. It's 7, 8 o'clock at night. It's in December. I'm like 'This isn't right.' There's a railroad track there and alll the sudden there's this development and there's probably 10 houses. It's like 'OK, here it is.' Take a left. Take a right. There's a church and some nice homes there. You go down and take another left and he says 'It's on this street.'

"It's so dark out you can't even see the numbers on the houses and he's going real, real slow. I said 'Brian, I'm telling you, this is not right, you know?' So he gets on the phone --- true story --- and he says 'Will, is your address this?' 'Yeah.' 'Well, we're here. Which one is your house?'

"We're looking and sitting there for probably five, seven minutes and he said 'It's not there,' so we start to go. We're going to take a left and here comes a pickup truck in this development and they're staring at us like 'What the heck are you guys doing in here?' Then we have a car that comes up behind us and I said 'Brian, I think we ought to get out of here.'

"We go and take a left and the next thing you know, we have both of them on our bumper in this little development as we get out on thus highway. Brian says 'Randy, hold on.' So we come flying out of this development and take a right. The pickup truck tries to rear-end us. The other one tries to go outside of us. He says 'Call 911.'

"I'm calling 911 and I'm getting on the phone and I say 'I'm the head coach of the University of Maryland, I'm out here. I know where we're at. We're getting chased. I didn't do anything. We need a police officer to come out here and make sure nothing happens.' We drive two and a half, three miles with these people chasing us and finally we get to this light and Brian outran them a little bit and get to the light and took a right and they stopped following us.

"That's the first time in 30 years I've ever been chased out of a development and chased down a highway trying to recruit somebody."

--- Patrick Stevens

Posted on Discourse.com
 
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