Putting their futures on the line

(Clarification: A Nov. 23 Page One story about the Chelsea High School football team described a player, Orlando Echeverria, as formerly associating with members of a gang known as the Bloods. Though Echeverria and his mother, Rosana DeJesus, discussed his former relationship with gang members, neither identified the gang as the Bloods. It was Echeverria's coach, James Atkins, who is supervisor of the Chelsea Police gang unit, who identified the gang as the Bloods. Also, DeJesus cited Echeverria's clash last year with an Asian gang, but she did not cite the gang's name. Atkins identified the gang as the Tiny Rascals.)

CHELSEA -- Her 15-year-old son locked up after a gang fight, Rosana DeJesus stood weeping in the police station, fearing she soon could lose him to the unforgiving streets.

She wanted to take him home. But her son, Orlando Echevarria, wearing red to signify his budding allegiance to the notorious Bloods, just had tangled with the Tiny Rascals, a rival Asian gang. And he gave his mother every indication he cared more about helping the Bloods rule their piece of Chelsea turf, no matter the peril, than going home.

''I was so scared," DeJesus said. ''I couldn't sleep because I was crying every night worrying about him."

Then came her angel, a no-nonsense supervisor of the gang unit for the Chelsea Police Department who added Echevarria to the list of troubled young souls he has rescued in his parallel quest to resurrect the high school's dormant football team and restore civic pride in this immigrant city.

In a masterwork of community service, Sergeant James Atkins, 40, has made a second career of saving the city's disaffected youths by recruiting them wherever he has found them -- the police station, the juvenile court, the street corners, the school cafeteria -- to run with a new crew, the Chelsea High Red Devils. Coach Atkins has given the city back its football team, made the streets safer, and put a band of once-delinquent teens in position to earn high school diplomas and, in some cases, college scholarships.

As a bonus, the revived Chelsea team enters its Thanksgiving rivalry with Pope John tomorrow tied for first place in its conference and vying for a berth in the Division 3A Super Bowl.

''I love him so much for what he has done for my son and the other boys," DeJesus said of Atkins, who is married with two children. ''He took them from the streets and he is like a father to them."

Inspired in part by his own childhood struggles -- ''I was one of three black kids raised by an Italian mother in an East Boston housing project," he said -- Atkins wrested Echevarria and some of his fellow Red Devils from the five gangs that menace this largely Latino city: the Bloods, the Tiny Rascals, the Latin Kings, MS-13, and 18th Street. He helped several players avoid criminal convictions by arranging pretrial probations that required them to stay in school and out of trouble. Then he worked day and night to try to ensure they satisfied the terms.

''I don't know where I would be without my coach," Echevarria said. ''I probably would still be gang-banging or I would be in jail."

All the roles that Atkins fills -- coach, cop, counselor, career adviser, surrogate parent, truant officer and more -- hardly seem enough some days. Amid the enormity of his challenge, he has gone to exceptional lengths to keep his players from succumbing to the pressures of poverty, crime, and family crises.

Consider the player whose brother Atkins recently put behind bars for five years for a stabbing. The coach has since regularly driven the player to visit his brother, first at the Suffolk County Jail on Nashua Street in Boston, then at the Suffolk County House of Correction at South Bay.

Or consider the quarterback, Luis Verde, whose mother died in August. As Verde prepared to bury his mother, who was a single parent, and move in with his aunt, Atkins called him daily to ease him through the trauma. The coach has since supported Verde emotionally and financially.

''He helped me keep going," Verde said. ''He told me not to look back because there was nothing I could have done about the situation with my mother. He made sure I kept my mind straight."

Atkins knows many of his players have too little to eat, said Frank DePatto, Chelsea High's athletic director. (The most recent census data for Massachusetts show Chelsea ranks last or near the bottom in categories such as childhood poverty, per capita income, and average family size). So Atkins buys pizza for the team before every game to make sure his players are nourished. He arranges for the 14 seniors on the 57-player roster to share dinner together every Thursday at a coach's house, and he expects at least a couple of players to accept his invitation to share Thanksgiving dinner with his family tomorrow if they have nowhere else to go.

''I worry about them," Atkins said. ''There are so many obstacles for these kids. Some of them have parents in jail, others have parents on drugs. A lot of them have to cook, clean, and help out with their siblings on top of everything else. They have a lot more responsibilities than the average suburbanite."

The wonder of it, Atkins said, is that so many of his players seem unfazed by their circumstances. Many of them also cope with cultural challenges. Chelsea's roster includes players whose families emigrated from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Cape Verde, Puerto Rico, Somalia, and Bosnia, among other locales.

''They don't have the same sense of desperation that I have for them because this is all they know," said Atkins.

Yet he tolerates few excuses. He has tossed a number of players off the team, including one of the best linemen in eastern Massachusetts, because they continued to run with gangs. And he barks like a boot camp instructor at the players who stay with him.

''I don't want to hear them," Atkins said of excuses. ''I've been there. I was home by myself, too, as a kid. I played high school football [at East Boston], practiced until 5 o'clock, worked at the airport until 10 o'clock [as a baggage handler], went home and did my homework, and got up and did it again. I know you can do it."

His spirit appealed to DePatto, who hired Atkins last year to overcome one of the greatest disappointments in more than 100 years of Chelsea football. Just as the city prepared in 2003 to celebrate the $1 million installation of synthetic grass at Veterans Field -- the guests included NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue and Patriots owner Robert Kraft -- DePatto was forced to shut down the varsity football program after the team's thin ranks were further depleted by injuries.

For the first time since the Great Depression, Chelsea failed to play football on Thanksgiving. Alumni called it ''a disgrace," said DePatto, who shared their pain. Then came Atkins, building a team that went 8-3 last year and enters tomorrow at 7-2.

The only criticism Atkins has faced surfaced this fall when he weakened the team in a big game against Georgetown by limiting the playing time of three key starters as punishment for missing practice. But Chelsea superintendent Thomas Kingston, part of the Boston University team that has run the city's public schools since 1989, defended Atkins.

''I don't look at our football team as only a group of athletes, but as a means of developing strong civic habits among our urban youth," Kingston said. ''No one is better at helping them develop those habits than Jimmy."

Even players who have felt the coach's wrath endorsed him.

''It doesn't matter about our ethnicity or anything, he is like a father to us," said the long snapper, Vladimir Link, who is of Mexican descent. ''He doesn't just care about our football season, he cares about our futures."

Atkins informed six players before a recent practice they were ineligible for the Thanksgiving game because of their grades. He instructed eight others to report after practice to their chemistry class (he had persuaded the teacher to stay late and tutor the students). He told the seniors on the team, who had applied for SAT tests under his guidance earlier in the week, to attend the college fair that night, only after they had rehearsed for the fall fashion show.

''My father hasn't come to school once," fullback Frankie Quiles said, ''but the coach is always there for us."

Sometimes, Atkins may be closer than his players prefer.

''I know who their friends are and where they hang out," Atkins said. ''I'm out on the street and I'm in the school They can never get away."

The strategy has benefited running back Larry Gregory, who leads the division in scoring. With Atkins hounding him, Gregory's teammates indicated, Gregory has transformed himself from a quick-tempered junior to a relatively mature senior.

''I'm more focused right now on getting into college," Gregory said. ''The coach will kill me if I don't."

As for Echevarria, Atkins said he wished he could spend more time trying to keep him on track.

''He still associates with some of [the Bloods], but he understands where his future lies," Atkins said. ''He knows there's no future with those kids."

Echevarria said he plans to steer clear of trouble.

''I'm not chilling with my boys anymore," he said, referring to the gang. ''I've got a team here."

Chelsea officials said they hope Atkins also sticks around.

''After the job he has done here, Jim Atkins can go anywhere and get a coaching job and be successful," DePatto said. ''I just hope we're able to keep him."

No problem, Atkins indicated, as he led the Red Devils toward the football field where they have made their city -- and each other -- proud.

''I'm staying right here," he said. ''These are my kids."