Thenarse finds peace on field

[sea o' red]

http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2008/0...2b144868454.txt

 

Between those lines, that always was the sanctuary.

 

It’s just a game, but out there on that football field was also an escape, Rickey Thenarse’s chance to get away from it all — the gangs, the violence, the overwhelming feeling that destruction loomed around each corner.

 

He could be something special within the boundaries of sports, and so his brothers drove him to practices and told him to chase those football dreams and a better life, the kind of life so difficult to find in that rough Los Angeles neighborhood known as Watts.

 

That’s where the Husker junior safety grew up and that’s where he was a couple of weeks ago when he saw his half-brother shot and killed. Kejuan Bullard was just 23.

 

Thenarse and his brother were standing outside of a skating rink. He said some guys pulled up and just started shooting into the crowd. Thenarse says he was lucky a bullet didn’t find him.

 

It came just a couple months after another half-brother, 25-year-old Branden Bullard, died in a gang-related shooting.

 

Those same brothers used to protect him, take him to the field, tell him to stick with the games. The streets could only bring hurt.

 

“When you get a little bit older, it starts to get dangerous,” Thenarse says. “It ain’t all just about fighting. Guns and stuff go off. There’s really no way around it unless you do sports and try to stay positive. And that’s really rare.”

 

Having spent the past two years in Nebraska, the life Thenarse left behind is hard for most anyone around here to understand.

 

“Everybody who’s not from my area looks at it as crazy,” Thenarse says. “(But) it happens so often out there, it’s just life. You just got to try to accept it and move on, and look at it as a learning experience.”

 

Thenarse returned to Los Angeles late last week to say goodbye to his brother.

 

On Saturday, he was back in Lincoln, back between the lines, doing what he’s sure his brothers would want him doing.

 

He says he’s done a lot of praying recently — to God and his brothers.

 

“You could look at it negative, but I just look at it positive. They lived a pretty rough life. I just look at it as they just escaped it,” Thenarse says. “They’re just resting in peace now. I just want to carry on the dream, hope to make the NFL and finish out my career. That’s what they wanted me to do.”

[Touchdown Tommie]

It is truly hard to believe what some of these kids go through growing up....especially being from the Midwest....I know things go down in bigger cities. I could not imagine losing two of my brothers by being shot for senseless things.

Football/sports is a sanctuary for these kids and I hope they all realize what kind of chance they are getting and make the most of it.

[Drowning_in_the_Sea_of_Red]

Hate to see anybody go through these kind of things.

 

Hope he can work his way into the starting lineup and decapitate receivers coming across the middle.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

My heart goes out to the young man. I really hope he achieves everything he wants to and he's easily in the Top 5 of my favorite Huskers.