Football opens doors for Katrina survivor

Speedy Peterson a key part of North's rebuilding season

Newton North High junior running back Troy Peterson is the team's leading rusher. (Barry Chin/Globe Staff)

Rene Peterson used to worry constantly about her only son, Troy.

A mother at 16, she was left to raise Troy primarily on her own three years later when her relationship with his father ended. At the time, they were living in the Calliope projects, in a dangerous part of uptown New Orleans.

Now a junior at Newton North High School, 16-year-old Troy said those days in New Orleans provided some great memories - "a lot of people screaming, having fun" - but also some horrid ones. Drug trafficking was common, and shootings occurred nightly. He said that he was 11 the first time he saw someone shot to death, and that he was scarred by the experience.

Still living in New Orleans, Rene said that she and her sister Monique, and their mother, Irene, constantly remind Troy of the dangers surrounding the family.

"To me, it's hard if the child is weak, has a weak mind," said Rene, 32, who said Troy's birth gave focus to her life. She graduated on time in 1995 from Booker T. Washington High School, and took courses for a year at Bryman College before starting her present-day job as a supply worker at University Hospital in her hometown city. "I never had that problem with him. He wasn't a follower - people followed him. And I've always stayed on him about the streets."

Since 2005, shortly after Hurricane Katrina forged a path of destruction through New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast, Troy has lived in Newton with his grandmother, who works as a nanny for Dr. Mark Vrahas, an orthopedic specialist, and his wife, Cindy Golus, caring for their three boys: Mark, 13; Remy, 12; and Alexander, 10. Vrahas formerly served as chief of the orthopedic trauma unit at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

Katrina forced the Petersons, like many homeless families, to collect their remaining belongings and move quickly. Over the course of two months, they made stops at motels and friends' houses in Baton Rouge and Lake Charles, La., before finding a house in Houston.

Irene, who had been living with the Vrahas family since 1999, sent Troy money for a plane ticket to Boston shortly after he and his mother arrived in Houston.

"You've got to have respect for your elders. I grilled that in his head," said his 59-year-old grandmother. "But Troy's just an easygoing guy. He's a good child."

Easygoing, yes. When he went off to play football, he never bothered to tell his family that it was a Pop Warner game. He stopped playing at age 10, out of fear of contact. But he still ran track.

Upon arriving at Newton North, he went out for the football team. And this season, Peterson has been a focal point of coach Peter Capodilupo's offense. Shunning the fancy, shimmy-and-shake maneuvers of some running backs, the 5-foot-8, 170-pound Peterson has learned to do one thing and do it well: outrun defenders.

"We don't have a lot of kids that can break one like he can," Capodilupo said.

So far, the 0-5 Tigers haven't had many opportunities; Peterson scored his first touchdown in last Saturday's 24-13 loss to Wellesley, and North has scored only 19 points this season.

Still, Capodilupo said he considers Peterson "a foundation for this year. He's got to be part of" the team's improvement, "and I think he understands that.

"He can definitely run outside," the coach said. "We'd like to get him to be able to get between the tackles and make one cut. We always talk about making that one dramatic cut, turning a tackle into an arm tackle. If he can do that, we're all set."

The classroom, according to family members, has provided Peterson with another set of challenges. He appeared to be behind when he first arrived, and receives plenty of guidance from teachers and counselors. His frustrations with classwork at times have led to outbursts, enough to place him in an anger management class through the school.

"He enjoys being embraced. But I also think he enjoys structure," Capodilupo said. "If you haven't had structure, there's always a resentment to it. But at the same time, you need structure to grow, and I think he's enjoying the structure that he's getting."

Unable to hold back his wide grin, Peterson summed up his current lot as "the good life," especially compared with much of what he left behind in New Orleans. "I miss it a lot, actually," he said. "But I figured this is probably better for me, because there's too much killing down there.

"Everyone's real nice around here. Down there, you couldn't be nice to no one."

And now, too, his mother is finally getting to watch some tapes of her son's football games. She said that the first time she watched him, she cried.

"He plays to win. He plays from the heart."

Hard work pays off for St. John's

St. John's High trailed crosstown rival Shrewsbury until the final minutes of Saturday's game, when Andrew Dugan scampered in from 3 yards out, capping a 14-13 win. The senior had 69 yards on 10 carries, but 43 of them came on the final drive, a 12-play, 84-yard effort that took just four minutes to complete.

In the second half, the Pioneers made a few adjustments that paid off. Defensively, St. John's faked more blitzes. And on the last-minute drive, the Pioneers ran almost exclusively out of formations with four receivers set wide, drawing defenders out and opening up the middle.

"There was more room than I was used to today," Dugan said, smiling, deflecting credit to his linemen.

In the season's opening game against Holy Name, sophomore wideout Richard Rodgers wrestled the ball away from a defender for a 16-yard, game-winning touchdown pass with three minutes to go.

"This win is the kind of win that comes from working in the weight room, when no one's looking, and in the summer, when people are at the beach and you're working hard," St. John's coach John Andreoli said after last weekend's game, when his Pioneers improved to 4-0. "I just give all our credit to the kids today."

Extra points

Medway has not allowed a score since giving up a fourth-quarter touchdown pass in a 14-12 win over Hull on Sept. 19. And the Mustangs have not allowed a rushing TD since last Thanksgiving's win over Millis. . . . Lincoln-Sudbury Regional's 48-6 drubbing of Wayland was the team's highest point total since beating St. Bernard's, 48-23, in September 2006, when Mark Hogan racked up 313 rushing yards and four touchdowns.

Brendan Hall can be reached at bhall59@hotmail.com.