It takes a village
Ron Burton's children carry on father's legacy at a camp that helps boys grow in body and spirit
HUBBARDSTON - At the Ron Burton Training Village, teenage boys hug with enthusiasm, quote the Bible, and talk unselfconsciously about the power of love to transform lives.
They also speak in the present tense about Ron Burton Sr., the sports camp's namesake and founder - an indication of the way his uncommon spirit and storied rise from poverty to professional football still inspire hope and hard work among those who come here, five years after he died.
"He is amazing," says Obi Brown, a 15-year-old Ghanaian immigrant who never met Burton, the Patriots' first-ever draft pick, but looks up to him nonetheless. "Even at the baddest moments, he's always smiling."
More than 120 boys ages 11 to 17, most from tough neighborhoods and foster homes in and around Boston, spend five weeks every summer here in the woods west of the city. Many return year after year, paying only what they can - often very little, sometimes nothing - for a chance to get in shape, improve their game, and choose a different path than their peers at home.
"We're bringing them out to a setting that's completely foreign to their living situation," says soft-spoken Ron Burton Jr., 44, one of five siblings who have run the Training Village since their father died in 2003 at age 67. "We're exposing them to a whole 'nother culture."
Cellphones and iPods are not allowed anywhere on the 305-acre campus. There is no yelling, no cursing, and no insulting - rules familiar in a classroom. But where schools often fail to create an expectation of gentleness, this place - sustained by a family of singular generosity, and distinguished by manicured lawns, trimmed hedges, and Greco-Roman statues - seemingly succeeds.
"My father's philosophy was, if you see beautiful things, you think beautiful thoughts," says Ron Jr., a director of community relations for the Red Sox who, along with his younger brother Paul, a 35-year-old reporter for WBZ-TV (Channel 4), takes five weeks' vacation each year to volunteer here. They run the camp on in-kind donations and a budget of $350,000, most of which comes from sponsors at an annual fund-raising dinner at Gillette Stadium.
Each morning at 4:30, Ron Jr. sings a song to roust the young men from their beds for a 7-mile run through the forest under a brightening, just-past-dawn sky. Dressed in matching gray sweats, the boys - skinny and stout, black, white, and Latino - split off into pairs and trios, high-five-ing one another as they go.
"Life is like the 7 miles," says Bonsu Brown, 19, Obi's older brother and a former camper who has returned this summer to work as a counselor. "You have different struggles you have to go through, hills you have to climb."
Brown spent high school avoiding home because of his parents' arguments, he says, and now is a student at Syracuse University on a full scholarship.
His success story is just one of many that have emerged from this place. The Burtons, whose camp waiting list is long, use teacher and counselor recommendations, as well as personal interviews, to choose young men who are ready to grab hold of opportunity.
"They're hungry for goodness," Ron Jr. says. "That's the kid we want - seen all the junk, and is hungry for something different."
He points out Walter Pope, a quiet, long-lashed 17-year-old from a Framingham foster home, who, on a recent Friday morning, finishes the morning run first in just 54 minutes.
Earlier this spring, Pope flew to Annapolis at the invitation of a Naval Academy recruiter; he hopes to go there after graduating from high school next year. "It's a whole different lifestyle that makes you a different person," he says, explaining, after catching his breath, his attraction to both the academy and this camp. "It really gets you away from the world."
Several colleges and service academies offer full scholarships to Training Village graduates.
"There's a maturity about them," says Brian Murphy, the admissions dean at Stonehill College in Easton, which guarantees at least two scholarships a year. "There's a drive that they have."
The 7-mile run is a daily regimen that Ron Burton Sr. started when he was a poor teenager growing up in Ohio who initially warmed the bench on the football team and was nicknamed "Nothing." He credited the physical and mental strength he learned on those runs - and the spiritual strength he found in God - with steering him to a full athletic scholarship at Northwestern University and a career with the Patriots, where he was a running back from 1961 to 1965.
Unfailingly, those who knew him say Ron Sr. was a modest, bighearted man who quietly commanded respect. "I used to think - Ron always said, 'Love you big guy' - that he only said that to me," says Robert Kraft, the Patriots' owner. "He really meant it when he said it. But going to the funeral, I realized that he said it to a lot of people, and . . . he really meant it."
Burton risked his life savings to buy land for the Training Village in 1984, unable to secure a bank loan for a nonprofit camp.
"At first I said Ron, you got to be kidding me," laughs Joanne Burton, his widow, who introduced herself to her husband-to-be when he distinguished himself at a party by ordering milk instead of alcohol. "But he explained to me, 'God gave me a tremendous blessing, and it's expected of me that I give back.' "
Helping campers create a relationship with God is central to the Burtons' mission. Boys cheering one another on at the finish line look across a grassy field to a white cross atop a small hill. After their run, the boys shower, eat breakfast, and listen to a short sermon from Paul, who is a Baptist pastor. Then, carrying Bibles, they disperse to corners of the camp's landscaped gardens to spend time alone reading verses.
Teens of all religions are welcome, but the Burtons preach the Christian gospel. Children face choices that don't make any sense without some kind of moral guidance, says Ron Jr. "We use the Bible," he says, "as the basis for lessons of right and wrong."
When Ron Sr. died, no one was sure whether the camp - built on the overcoming-adversity legend of his life, on his generosity, and on his faith - would be the same. But his children carry on. In the past 24 years, the Burtons have become role models, advocates, and father figures for more than 2,000 summer campers, plus another 3,000 who attend weekend mini-sessions sponsored by the Red Sox.
Ron Jr. and Paul are often joined by brothers Steve and Phil, both sportscasters (Steve at WBZ, Phil in Orlando), and their sister Elizabeth, who teaches SAT prep courses. Ginni Burton, Steve's wife, teaches campers to swim, a required skill.
"They're really bringing Mr. Burton through in all that they're doing - in the way that they walk and the way that they talk," says Branden Getchell, 19, a veteran of multiple foster homes who started coming to camp when he was 10.
Now, Getchell studies communications on a scholarship at Boston College and says returning here as a counselor and keeping in touch with the Burtons throughout the year helps him resist the temptations of life outside this enclave. "Paul will give me a call just to go to the movies," he says.
Lessons learned here are powerful enough to last years, says Wayne May, 37, who attended camp for just one summer 20 years ago. After serving in the Army for nine years, losing a son, and divorcing, he was deep into drugs when he attended Ron Sr.'s funeral.
"I knew he would not be happy with the way I was living," says May, tearing up. "Not that he would be mad, but he deserved more."
May, who lives in Ohio, remembers that funeral as a turning point. He returned to church, got married, and started a business training young athletes. When the Burtons needed an extra hand this summer, he took the chance to help in honor of Ron Burton Sr., whose picture hangs in the entryway of the camp dormitory, and whose spirit remains the driving force here.
"He gave us so much love, and when you're given that kind of love you don't run out," Ron Jr. says. "You overflow with it."
Emma Brown can be reached at ebrown@globe.com.
