Signature: Darin James Fontenette

Age: 46
Occupation: Founder, Gardere Youth Alliance; Owner, Early Bird Homecare
Hometown: Loreauville, La.

They are ready to spring.
From the lattice of park bleachers, cheers distill in their throats.

The first game will be here soon.

And then, these mothers will spring up loud for their boys.

Passionate as the prayers they whisper wishing for safety, each will cradle a child’s future here.

They have brought their most precious ones to a man who, eight years ago, had a basic but bold vision for changing lives.

Darin Fontenette, founder of the Gardere Youth Alliance, shows children from a rough area how to play games and play them right.

It’s pigskin or basketball that draws these young hearts that harbor dreams of professional contracts and Super Bowl rings.

Yet, “You have to ask yourself,” says Fontenette, who played offensive tackle in high school, “how many professional players are going to come out of here?”

Books and tutoring are marrow in superstar dreams.

Then there are the upstanding community men who will come and inspire the boys, and themselves, too, when things get quiet; quiet enough to hear crickets or the distant wail from a tugboat passing on the Mississippi.

“Our job is to prepare them for other options,” Fontenette says.

Devoted mentors will raise the chances that these young boys will stay in school, or earn a college degree, or even help cure cancer.

But this isn’t Fontenette’s day job. When the sun shines, he sculpts lawns.

Night is for carving the future of these young people with drills and physical challenges and an honest perspective on life off the field.

Fontenette is successful.

Still, he remains in this neighborhood because he believes in the goodness of his people.

Sometimes that leads to heartbreak and tragedies that strike too violently and too soon. One of his basketball players was shot this past the summer.

“It looks like it’s going good for many, and then you hit one of those bumps,” he says.

A whistle splits the air. The boys charge on, mining for golden strength and wisdom on the turf, pushing, always pushing, in the direction of tomorrow.