Sports

Preps

Success at a bittersweet price

Hudson's Sean Scott, one of the bay area's top RBs, left Georgia to help his mom.

By DAVID MURPHY
Published October 30, 2007

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Sean Scott's mom, Leah King, hugs him during halftime of a game. "Being Sean's mom is part of what defines me," she says.
	[Lance Aram Rothstein | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Lance Aram Rothstein | Times] Hudson's Sean Scott, leaping over a Gulf defender during a game, has 18 touchdowns and 1,450 yards so far this season, ranking him seventh among running backs in the Tampa Bay area. [Lance Aram Rothstein | Times] King travels to Hudson from Leesburg, Ga., to see Sean play. [Lance Aram Rothstein | Times] Sean Scott's mom, Leah King, right, and his aunt, Audra McIntosh, cheer for Sean during a game.

The drive from Leesburg, Ga., to Hudson is like a lot of drives through the Southeast: a never-ending stretch of strip malls and gas stations, the miles marked by small crossroads towns and the gentle transition from pine trees to palms.

As Sean Scott maneuvered his 1992 GMC pickup down U.S. 19 in April, the mind-numbing scenery was the perfect backdrop for some much-needed reflection.

"It's 51/2, six hours," Scott said, "so there's a lot of time to think."

Behind him was a two-stoplight town and a single mother who had poured everything she had into making him a man. In front of him were 300 miles of uncertainty.

The first lesson a running back is taught is to hang on tight, and with 1,450 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns this season, Scott has performed admirably.

But sometimes, the most valuable yards you gain are the ones you gain by letting go.

The beginning

Ask her about her son's first football practice, and Leah King will smile as if it were yesterday. She was 25. He was 6. She didn't have a husband, which meant she had to fend for herself.

Problem is, Leah thought knee pads were thigh pads, and thigh pads were hip pads, so when Sean walked out of the house, he looked so disheveled that a couple of Leah's male friends pulled him to the side so he wouldn't show up to practice and embarrass himself.

"They laughed like hell at me," Leah said.

At first, it wasn't supposed to be like that. Leah fell in love soon after she met Sean's father, Sedrick Scott. He's black, the son of a father who had died in a marsh in South Vietnam. She's white, the daughter of a father who dusted crops and a mother who ran his business.

They attended the same high school together, rode motorcycles together, caused trouble together.

When Leah found out she was pregnant, she tried to hide it from her mother. She thought about an abortion. But, Leah said, "mothers always know."

She missed 65 days of high school that year. Sedrick, meanwhile, enlisted in the Marines, determined to provide for his new family.

But a month after Sean was born - six days before Christmas in 1989 - Sedrick was shipped overseas. He eventually landed in Kuwait, where he served in a combat unit in the Gulf War, and everything changed.

"I distanced myself from people," Sedrick said. "It's not like I could just get up and go home."

Sedrick has always kept in touch with Leah and Sean. He has seen his son play football and hosted him on visits. But the three of them haven't lived in the same town since Sedrick returned from the war.

Not much alike

Leesburg is a typical small Georgia town: one high school, two stoplights, a smattering of fast-food restaurants. Just down the road is Albany, home to one of the first mass civil-rights movements.

At first, Leah was concerned about how Sean would be accepted. Although more than one-third of Leesburg's residents are black, it was unclear how a kid such as Sean would fit in.

She has dirty blond hair and blue eyes and looks far younger than her 37 years. He is short and stocky, with dark brown skin, dark brown eyes and a sharp jawline.

Forget family trees, mother and son look like they hail from different forests.

"He laughs like me," she said. "That's it."

But with an infectious smile, impeccable manners and dimples that still causes his aunt to coo, Sean would have won people over if his skin were mauve.

"Shortly after meeting Sean, you can't help but change your mind about how you see the world," said his aunt, Audra McIntosh.

It isn't easy for a woman to raise a man, but Leah did her best.

One day after a youth football game, Leah overheard her son referring to himself as "Touchdown Sean." That night, she forced him to watch the movie Any Given Sunday, in which a football star's ego gets him into trouble with his teammates.

"She tried to fill both roles father and mother," Sean said, "even though she didn't have to."

At Lee County High School, "Touchdown Sean" became something of a "Blue-collar Sean." His first two years, the Trojans were led by a spectacular quarterback named D'Vontrey Richardson, now a freshman at Florida State. His junior year, Sean split time with his cousin, a speedy back named Eddie Bell.

Leah was having problems at home. Eight years earlier, she'd married a paint contractor named Chris King, with whom she had another son, Gage. Sean wasn't close with either of them, and in January, an injury left Chris out of work for three months, forcing Leah's job as an insurance agent to provide for the whole family.

Sean saw his mother struggling, financially and psychologically.

Leah's younger sister was concerned about Sean's future. She had moved to Florida with her husband and their children 12 years before, and Sean and Leah had visited several times. Audra and Sean pitched the plan for Sean to move to Florida.

"She knew it was the right thing to do," Audra said. "But who wants to let their kid go?"

Success in a new place

When Sean left Leesburg in April, he had a duffle bag full of bare essentials: clothes, cologne and video games. He registered at Hudson for the final few months of his junior year but planned to go home at the end of the summer.

In Hudson, a town of 12,000 that is 94 percent white, a kid who looks like Sean is a rarity. So perhaps it isn't a surprise he was quickly befriended by senior Tony Germano, a wide receiver for the Cobras.

By the end of his first day, Sean was sitting in Mark Nash's office listening to the Cobras coach pitch his program. By the end of spring practice, he was the team's starter at tailback.

Sean fit right in. He visited home several times over the summer but decided to remain at Hudson for the season. Meanwhile, his grades improved, as did his relationship with Gage.

"It's funny what moving away does," said Sean, who is interested in sports medicine.

Sean opened the season with nearly 200 yards rushing against Ridgewood. He has rushed for more than 100 in every game since and ranks seventh in the bay area with 1,450 yards. He likely isn't a Division I running back - he doesn't have the prototypical size or speed - but he's a hard runner who likely has a future at a lower-level college.

For Leah, however, the transition has been bittersweet. When Sean first moved, she could barely coax herself out of bed. She lost weight. Every time another parent would ask about him, she'd cry.

Now, she is forced to watch one of the most enjoyable years as a parent - homecoming, prom, senior pictures - from afar.

"Being Sean's mom is part of what defines me," she said, "and I just don't feel like a whole person without him."

It's moments like those when Leah opens her cell phone, scrolls through her pictures and recalls a shot she took two months ago. En route to Hudson's season opener, she and a friend encountered a fierce system of thunderstorms as they crossed the state line. Convinced the game would be canceled, Leah started to cry.

But just after Leah and her friend rolled up to the stadium, two rainbows appeared.

Sean rushed for a touchdown and 192 yards that day. But it's the picture of the rainbows Leah keeps on her phone.

"Just to remind myself," she said, "that there is always sunshine after the rain."

[Last modified October 30, 2007, 00:06:03]