"ALL WESTERN MASS" THE HARD WAY

By Frederick A. Hurst

Joseph Emmanuel Grimes was raised by two working parents who valued education and held high expectations of him and his two older brothers. Things didn’t go quite as smoothly as his parents had wished and Joseph was determined to make up for some of their disappointment.

Things seemed to start out right. By the fourth grade Joseph followed his brothers into the 5A athletic program that was started in 1992 by former State Representative Raymond A. Jordan. Joseph played defensive line for the 5A team every year through the eighth grade, after which he attended ninth grade at the High School of Commerce where his fortunes shifted for the worse.

Joseph’s 5A coaches, Tom Hodge and William Griffin, Jr., are volunteers. They were with the 5A program from its start and swear to its effectiveness. What they don’t say is that it is effective because of volunteers like themselves who are giving unselfishly of their time to keep youngsters like Joseph Emmanuel Grimes on target.

While coaching football, they teach “character.” The kids keep their shirts tucked in, refer to adults with “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” and understand that they better keep their school grades up and act right or there will be no football. When the players are away from home, the coaches are their surrogate parents and the diet of tough love they are fed tends to stick with them long afterwards. “It’s not about money,” Griffin said. “It’s about getting the kids on the right track.”

Joseph Grimes is a reflection of the 5A legacy. He had plans to expand his football resume at Commerce. He was a ninth grader and couldn’t expect much playing time, but, at least, he made the team. And it was a good year for Commerce football. The team made it to the super bowl but Joseph wasn’t allowed to go. A week before the super bowl, he was suspended for fighting. It wasn’t just a simple fight. It was a brawl involving members of the Eastern Avenue gang and guns. He didn’t have a gun and nobody was actually hurt but everybody involved, including Grimes, was suspended from school.

Football season had ended but basketball season was just beginning. When Joseph was told he couldn’t play sports for the rest of the year, he planned to quit Commerce for good and stayed out for the remainder of the school year.

The suspension didn’t faze Joseph as much as his parents’ disappointment. They had already suffered watching his two older brothers losing out to the streets and he did not want to add to their suffering. Fate interceded in the form of a friend whose parents invited him to live with them in Southampton. He readily accepted and his academic and sports career were revived.

Joseph started his freshman year all over again at Hampshire Regional High School, where he played the last four games of the football season at Easthampton High. Neither school had enough students for a football team, so under a cooperative agreement, Hampshire students played football on the Easthampton team. Joseph really came alive in his next two years and scored 23 touchdowns in his 10th grade year and 25 in the current year while closing in on 2000 yards in only his 2nd full year of play. He ran for 1485 yards this year alone and was just informed that he has been elected All Western Mass and he still has a year to play before exploring college opportunities.

“I never knew I could play until I played for 5A. If I hadn’t gotten into 5A, I’d have been as bad as everybody else out there. They teach life lessons and discipline and it helped me not give up in my freshman year,” he said.

His parents must be real proud. n