The strong safety

SOMERVILLE - A full moon hung over Trum Field the other night as the jocks took on the cops in a celebrity benefit softball game.

The jock squad included former Red Sox players Ken Ryan, Jeff Plympton, and Rick Miller, Bruins Hall of Famer Ken Hodge, and ex-Patriots Roland James, Jim Bowman, and Jon Williams. Several had come directly from the golf course. Not James, though. He had been at his Somerville Youth Services office, planning field trips for kids from the 'hood - kids who, were their lives to take a wrong turn, might face Somerville's finest one day in something far more consequential than a softball game.

Playing defensive back in the NFL is not beneficial to one's spinal health. James, who put in 11 seasons with the Pats, suffers from a degenerative disc in his back ("He looks like a pretzel when he gets up in the morning," says his wife, Carmel) among other nagging ailments. Still trim and fit at 49, however, he contributed a couple of base hits and nifty fielding plays in his team's 20-19 win.

Afterward, fans way too young to have seen James in a Pats uniform - his last season was 1990 - sought his autograph. Whether they'd seen him play or not, James said, kids take away something positive from such encounters.

"Most kids I work with don't know the details of my NFL career," said James, sitting in his office in a converted city firehouse a few days prior to the charity game. "They're just looking to find a connection. Sometimes it's sports. Sometimes it's playing ping-pong or listening to music."

Outside his office door, two dozen young people played cards and shot pool. The program they were enrolled in prepares young teens for eligibility in Somerville's summer job program. For now, it's weekly field trips and discussions around topics like community leadership and "making good choices in life," said James, who became director of Somerville's youth-services office last year.

"There's so much diversity here - Puerto Rican, Haitian, Colombian - that making any connection is a challenge," he said. "I took a group to Nashoba Valley [ski area] last winter. Most had never been on skis before. We had a great time. We take groups into Boston and teach them how to use the subway. You'd be surprised how many don't know.

"It's a different world," he continued. "There's tremendous peer pressure to do things like drugs and alcohol. I worked in Roxbury for 11 years with the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program. I've worked with DSS and been a foster parent. But I've never seen a city so invested in meeting kids' needs."

James's ability to connect with kids has been a boon to Somerville, too, says mayor Joseph Curtatone, who took office in 2004 during an epidemic of youth suicides and OxyContin abuse.

"He's played a key role in fostering relationships within the youth provider network," says Curtatone. "What's amazing about Roland is, when he talks to kids he hardly ever mentions football. It's all about life and responsibilities."

Blending life lessons with football was a game plan James perfected when he coached football at Sharon High School from 1995-2004. Marc Wayshak, who went on to play at Harvard, was a member of Sharon's 1999 and 2000 teams. James, he says, recognized that for high school athletes like him, what happened off the field was more critical than what happened between the sidelines on game day.

"If a guy wasn't doing well in school or in trouble somehow, Coach James was the first one to show up," says Wayshak. "You wouldn't want him mad at you, but he really believed in kids both personally and athletically."

What many of his teammates didn't know, says Wayshak, was that Roland and Carmel James, who've lived in Sharon for 25 years and have raised four sons of their own, were also raising a houseful of foster kids. Kids whose lives had taken a hit or two already and needed a soft place to land.

"He never brought it up," says Wayshak.

Life lessons

James grew up in Jamestown, Ohio. A football and track star at the University of Tennessee, he became the Pats' first-round selection in the 1980 draft, a sound move by a franchise that made many questionable ones during an era that swung from the high of a Super Bowl (a 46-10 loss to the Chicago Bears in 1986) to low of a 1-15 record (1990). Playing cornerback and strong safety, James amassed 29 career interceptions, good for third place on the Pats' all-time list.

"I loved everything about playing," he says. "Sure, you want the money" - his salary topped out at $240,000 a year - "but playing is the thing. People talk about finding other outlets, but nothing gives you that same high."

Hobbled by a groin injury, James was released during training camp in 1991. "Real life begins at 30,"' a Globe reporter wrote at the time. "That appears to be the message the Patriots have sent" by letting James go.

It appeared James already knew what real life was about. During his own childhood, when a kid got in trouble, he says, "the neighbors would whup you first, then your folks would get you again." Conversely, when a neighbor fell on hard times, James's family was there with a hot meal and a bed. The lesson was hard to miss.

"Roland made a wonderful crossover from football," says Carmel James. "He always wanted to work with kids, and everything we've put in place has to do with that."

James took a year off after football to focus on family life, starting with his own boys, now ages 21 to 31. (The James gang also includes five grandchildren.) He also earned a degree in criminal justice at UMass. For two years, the Jameses lived in Miami, where Carmel helped take care of her ailing father. After moving back to Sharon, they continued taking in foster kids: two, three, four at a time. Carmel, who also runs a home day care center, isn't sure exactly how many. More than 25. "Six girls," she says, "and a bunch of boys."

Austin Gomes, 16, has lived with the James family for the past four years. His father is in prison. Roland James, he says, is "a tremendous role model." When Roland is away, says Carmel, Gomes, who's playing football for Sharon this year, "runs the house."

It's that kind of place.

In 2003, James took a job in Somerville with former Pats teammate John Hannah. Hannah had been hired as the city's youth development program coordinator and Somerville High football coach. By most accounts, he was less than successful in both. In February 2005, Hannah left Somerville High after compiling a dismal 0-11 record. City workers complained of his abrasive management style. When another ex-athlete was put in charge of the youth program, Curtatone admits, there was plenty of skepticism. "Roland had to earn respect and trust," says Curtatone, "not so much with his words but with his actions. I think he has."

Alex Pirie, a member of Somerville's Youth Services Network steering committee, says local youth programs have suffered from decades of funding problems, program cuts, and political squabbles. Hannah's tenure was "a disaster," says Pirie, that left James in a difficult position.

"He's a very nice person who's been put in an impossible situation," Pirie observes. "It's more than working with young people in a caring manner. It's fighting for resources at a time when the city isn't getting the funding it used to get."

James says his top priority is recruiting more kids for the city programs already up and running. Fund-raising? That's more a team effort, he says.

"There's a big group of people doing lots of good work for the kids of Somerville," says James. "But most people don't know about them."

Or, in at least one case, the details of their NFL careers.

Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at jkahn@globe.com.