The Book of Luke

by Luther Campbell

That winter, I got a call from the head coach at our rival, Northwestern, offering me a job for the 2011–12 season. I didn’t hesitate to say yes. During my two years as a high school coach, I’d helped some of the coaches from the Warriors move into jobs at Jackson and with me at Central. But we didn’t have anybody at Northwestern, despite the fact that a lot of Warriors were going there. It was where I needed to be, plus it would be a promotion to defensive coordinator, a new challenge for me as a coach.

  I went right to work. The season was solid. We went 8–2 and put up some incredible numbers. Spring, after the end of the season, the expiration date for my three-year temporary certification came up, and I started the process to get my permanent certification. On May 15, 2012, the administrative judge overseeing my application recommended to the Education Practices Commission of the State Board of Education that I be approved. “Petitioner does not pose a risk to the safety of the students entrusted to him,” he wrote in his evaluation. “For the past seven years, Petitioner has had significant direct contact with vulnerable youth without any reported problems.” That should have settled it, but two weeks later the state rejected me. Somebody up in Tallahassee had a problem with me coaching. The attorney for the State Board of Education, Charles Whitelock, appealed the judge’s recommendation, saying that I lacked “the required good moral character” to coach students because of my “criminal” record.

  Once again, Luther Campbell was back in court, defending my basic and fundamental rights. The way the system is designed, technically, if you have charges on your record from up to twenty-five years ago, you’re not fit to be employed by the school board to work with kids. Charges, not convictions. Which is crazy. I grew up in a community where the cops threw everybody in jail and sorted it out later. They didn’t care about anybody’s rights. They just did a clean sweep, and my neighbors and I were swept up like trash. Fortunately, I’d always been self-employed, so my record never had an impact on my ability to work. But how many black and brown people are being kept unemployed because they had the bad luck to come from a place where police harass you all the time? It’s an unfair policy. It’s unjust.

  I’ve never been convicted of a serious crime in my life. I’ve never been to prison. I’ve stood up in front of the Supreme Court of the United States and been found not guilty. How many people can say that? But all these years later, they were telling me I was unfit to coach kids. Did I make mistakes in my youth? As a performer? Of course I did. But that’s all the more reason I should be a coach. If they denied my certification, they’d be sending all these young kids a message that you can’t turn your life around and get a second chance, and these are kids who need all the second chances they can get. More than losing my coaching job, I was concerned about what kind of message my players would have taken away from it had I lost. I preach to my kids that they can change their lives and succeed, and nobody can ever take that from them. My kids believe it because I’m living proof that you’ve got to fight and work for what you get, but you can make it.

  It’s also not like there was a long list of people running in to help the kids at Northwestern High School in Liberty City. Why would you try and stop anyone who’s genuinely committed to serving that community? Same as with the censorship trial in Broward, I wasn’t just fighting for myself. There were a lot of guys like me who want to volunteer and contribute who might have made some mistakes at a young age. As a matter of fact, it’s the people who’ve been through the bad times who are able to mentor kids the best. A guy who’s squeaky-clean can’t tell a kid anything, because he can’t really understand what that kid is going through because he’s never experienced it. If you’ve never sat in that jailhouse holding cell, feeling stupid, how can you tell a kid what that experience is and how stupid you were for doing the stupid thing that got you there? Mr. Squeaky-Clean can’t tell that kid, “Hey, I see a lot of me in you, and I know what’s on your mind right now. You think you’re superman. You think you’re bigger than the world and smarter than everybody, but you ain’t that smart, buddy.” I felt like if I put up a fight, I might help set a new precedent for people to be able to go and coach and contribute. On top of my own desire to keep coaching, that was my big motivation.

  After the state appealed the judge’s recommendation, what followed was months of bureaucratic red tape, appeals and hearings, as I waited to see if I was going to be allowed to keep coaching. Given my celebrity, my case started attracting attention from the media, and who jumped in to join the fray but my old nemesis, Jack Thompson. Guy just doesn’t know when to give up. He fired off more of his angry letters to the judge in the case, saying I was still a part of the adult industry, that I was still just a dirty rapper. Of course, by that point Thompson had been disbarred by the Florida Bar Association for making false statements and harassing litigants, so nobody paid him much mind.

  Fortunately, a real Miami attorney was following the case as well. Mike Carney, a lawyer from one of the biggest firms in Miami, read about my story and reached out to me. I didn’t even know the guy, and he called me up and offered to handle the case, no charge. He said, “I just want to do it because I think you’re doing something great for these kids. I’d be honored to be your lawyer and defend you in this.” I thanked him, and he dove right in to help me argue my case.

  The Board of Education’s only actual legal argument was based on my application, which was incomplete. I’d listed and chronicled most of the charges and brushes with the law I’ve had, but not all of them. I forgot to add the South Carolina thing and the display-of-firearms charge from 1987, mostly because the forms were confusing. It’s not like I was trying to hide anything. I gave them my fingerprints knowing full well that they were going to run a complete background check. Besides, I’m Luther Campbell. Everything you could possibly want to know about every bad thing I’ve ever done is right there on Google.

  Their case wasn’t really about an incomplete application. It was the same moral hypocrisy that had triggered the whole censorship controversy twenty-five years before. In the deposition this attorney, Whitelock, grilled me for hours. It was worse than the criminal trial when I went to jail for performing onstage. In that case, I only had to defend one performance. This guy put my whole life on trial. He grilled me about every arrest, every late child-support payment. He grilled me about dirty lyrics, over and over again, lyrics that I didn’t even write. He did everything he could to make me out to be some kind of moral degenerate. This wasn’t some routine background check. I felt like the guy was out to get me, that he was just another Jack Thompson. Except that he wasn’t some random nut job. He was a government official, representing the authority of the state, interfering with my mission to serve my own community.

  I didn’t take any chances. In the months I spent waiting for the hearing to take place, I made my own case in the court of public opinion. I gave interviews to the New York Times, to Andy Staples at Sports Illustrated, to Soledad O’Brien at HBO’s Real Sports. All of them, the most mainstream of the mainstream media, came out in my defense, applauding the work I’d done for Liberty City youth over the years. When the hearing finally came, we flooded the court with character witnesses and letters testifying to my good works in the community: grateful parents, pastors, former players. State senator Oscar Brennan wrote a letter. Jimbo Fisher, head coach at Florida State University, wrote a letter. Lance Moore from the Miami Dolphins. We had dozens of them.

  By the time we’d made our case to the judge who presided over the hearing, there was no question about which way he would rule. He found that I was both fit and capable of coaching high school football. There were a few stipulations. I have to be on probation for three years, with a coach supervising me and filing progress reports to a probation officer up in Tallahassee. I also can’t participate in any kind of adult-related concerts or activities during the coaching season. It wasn’t a problem because I wasn’t doing anything like that anyway. They also made me take an online ethics class, which was a
joke.

  The judge’s decision was handed down in August, and after that, I was free to focus my attention back where it belonged, on the 2012–13 season and the kids who need me. I’m Coach Luke now, and that’s the way it’s gonna stay. In the course of my career, I’ve probably spent six months of my life sitting in courtrooms, fighting for what I believe in. I’ve spent over a million dollars in legal fees, easy, not because of things I’ve done or crimes I’ve committed, but because of attacks and harassments people have brought against me, trying to take away my First Amendment rights, trying to interfere with my ability to run a business, trying to stop me from helping high school kids that no one else is trying to help—trying to keep me trapped in those invisible chains. But every step of the way, I’ve fought for what I believe in. Same as my father before me, I refused to keep my head down and keep quiet. It’s cost me. I don’t have a mansion or a yacht or a private jet anymore. I don’t have the corner office at some billion-dollar record company. But that’s fine with me. I never cared about any of that anyway. What I have now is something far, far more important.

  CHARLES HADLEY PARK

  Before we won the state championship at Central, Devonta Freeman was being heavily recruited by Florida State University and made an early commitment to them. He led the team in rushing in his first three seasons in Tallahassee, and his junior year he took the Seminoles all the way to win the 2014 BCS National Championship Game, with career highs in rushing yards (1,016), receiving yards (278), and touchdowns (15). Last year he bypassed his final year of eligibility to enter the NFL draft and was picked up by the Atlanta Falcons.

  Rakeem Cato graduated from Central and joined the Thundering Herd at Marshall College in West Virginia. Marshall’s a smaller school, but they punch way above their weight. Rakeem’s sophomore year he was Conference USA MVP, and he led the entire nation in passing yards per game. He finished his four seasons with a school-record 14,079 passing yards and 131 passing touchdowns, came up in a lot of conversations as a contender for the Heisman, and set an NCAA record by throwing touchdown passes in thirty-nine consecutive games.

  Durell Eskridge went to Syracuse. As a redshirt sophomore at strong safety, he led the team in tackles and interceptions and has been one of their top defensive players every single year. As I write this, both Rakeem and Durell have entered the 2015 NFL draft and are waiting to see what happens.

  It’s not hard to imagine a different life for any of these guys: Devonta’s foot blown off by that stray bullet, Durell lying dead in a pile of bodies on the corner of Seventieth and Fifteenth, Rakeem kicked out of high school because nobody cared to help a troubled kid learn discipline and self-control. The difference for all three of them was the Liberty City Optimist Club. Not just what Coach Luke did, but what all of our coaches did: looking out for them, teaching them, taking time with them, showing them the opportunities that are out there.

  People like to talk about the Devontas and the Rakeems and the Durells because they’re the big success stories, the superstars. Our program has dozens of them. Every year we have kids joining NCAA powerhouse teams and being drafted in the early rounds of the NFL. Duke Johnson from the University of Miami is one of the top running backs in the nation. He’s one of ours. He’ll probably go in the first or second round in this year’s draft. Darryl Sharpton just went to the Bears as a middle linebacker; he’s one of ours. The top middle linebacker in the NFL, Lavonte David, who plays for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he came out of our program as well. Chad Johnson, who played ten years with the Cincinnati Bengals, he was one of our first.

  But like I’ve always said: this isn’t about football. These success stories are just the icing on the cake. The real story is in the hundreds of kids who’ve come through our program and used it to get an education, to get further down the road than they would have otherwise. I’ve built up relationships with dozens of college recruiters nationwide, and I’ve got all of them on speed dial. Everybody focuses on the Florida States and the Notre Dames, the powerhouse schools in the SEC and the Big Ten, but you can find scholarship dollars in plenty of other places, too. I can tell you where every spare nickel of NCAA scholarship money is and how to get it. If there’s $50,000 for a tailback at a Division II school in Ohio, I’m on the phone to that coach, telling him about my player’s SAT score, telling him to give that kid a look. Last year we put thirty-two kids in major universities across the country. Next year, we’ll do more.

  There’s success stories even beyond that. Not every kid can get a scholarship or play at the college level, but after coming out of the Liberty City Optimist Club, they’ve had years of tutoring and mentorship. They’ve acquired the life skills and the knowledge to make something of themselves. They’ve stayed off the corners. Every year we still lose too many kids, but every year more and more of them are finishing high school. Maybe they’re working and doing community college part-time. Maybe they’re in a vocational program. Whatever it is they’re doing, they’re doing it with drive and dedication. They have a sense of self-worth. They can see a path out of poverty where they didn’t see one before. They’ll never have to wear those invisible chains again.

  Flying on the private jet, partying on my yacht, living in the mansion with the big Jacuzzi, I remember those days. Being a rock star is fun, but the truth is I’m happier now. I make $1,500 a year coaching football. That doesn’t even cover the cost of the gas I use. I have the royalties from my solo career, my appearance fees and speaking fees. My wife and I have started a few small businesses, a local restaurant and a line of Uncle Luke imported rum. We lead a much simpler life than I used to. I coach my kids and write a column for the Miami New Times, our alternative paper.

  I sold the big mansion in the fancy gated neighborhood, and I don’t even miss it. The rich people there, they never acted like neighbors. Nobody talked to each other. They all just lived in their own worlds. Now I’m out in the suburbs—out in Broward County, if you can believe that—living in a nice area with middle-class families. The kids play in the street and the neighbors all say hello. It actually reminds me a lot of Liberty City when I was growing up, only it’s not just black. It’s all kinds of different people, living together.

  I’m happier than I’ve ever been right now because I have something I never had before. I have a family. All my life, I looked at all the money and everything I had, and I always told God, “You can take all this stuff, just give me a wife and a family.” You can have all the money in the world, but you come home to a house and lay in the bed with the wrong person, you’re not happy. You know it’s some bullshit. You go through those relationships and they don’t pan out, but you learn things from them. They’re preparing you for the real relationship that you’re meant to have.

  People’s misconception of me is that I’m out there dating strippers. But that was never the case. I wasn’t looking to marry some girl in my music videos. Like the saying goes: you don’t get high on your own supply. When I was a rock star, most of the women I was attracted to and had serious relationships with were professional women, educated women I could relate to on my own level. Kristen was all of that. She’s an attorney. Intelligent, confident, kind. She saw right past the Uncle Luke stuff right away. She started spending time with me out at the park, working with the Optimist kids, and she knew right away that that’s the man I really was. And the fact that she liked sports helped a lot. We’ll be married seven years this July.

  Uncle Luke isn’t gone forever. I still love music, still produce songs here and there and do appearances with other artists. I’ve got a couple dozen tracks in the vault that I haven’t released, and I may do something with them at some point. The music business, it’s like a drug. It’s exciting and fun, and people always come back to it wanting that fix. Every now and then, when the vibes are right, I’ll think about getting back out there and doing something. But every time that happens, I get pulled back in the other direction, back to the place that needs me most, back to Central and N
orthwestern, back to Charles Hadley Park, back to my community. As happy and as settled as I might be in my personal life, I know that I can’t rest even for a minute, because the fight for Liberty City continues every day. I know that the fight isn’t hopeless. I know that we can win, because I’ve seen it happen. I’ve helped make it happen.

  In March of 2011, Miami voted to recall its mayor, Carlos Alvarez. He was a terrible mayor. He raised property taxes during a housing crisis. He gave his cronies in city government big fat raises in the middle of a budget crisis. Miami-Dade has been run like a banana republic for decades, and Alvarez was one of the worst we’ve ever had. After the recall, the city called for a special election to replace Alvarez, and the whole city, blacks, whites, Hispanics, suddenly we had an opportunity to take a clean, fresh look at our problems.

  I’ve always believed in one Miami. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen it when everybody’s dancing together at my concerts, when the whole city rallied around the Miami Hurricanes in the ’84 Orange Bowl, when white and Hispanic families enjoy some Liberty City hospitality during football games in Charles Hadley Park. But then every time it gets to the level of politics and effecting change, everything falls apart. Many politicians and private entities have a vested interest in dividing us, playing us off against each other to enrich themselves. I’ve always believed that if politicians would stop dividing us, we could unite for the good of everyone.

  Back when I was a DJ, I went downtown from time to time to get permits to play in different places. It was my first brush with politics. What I noticed every time I set foot in City Hall was that I didn’t see anybody who looked like me. We had a few token representatives, but it was all white people and Cuban people. They were running the shit. Black people built Miami. Bahamians and Jamaicans cleared the tropical forests and filled in the swamps so that other people could get rich, and a century later we barely had a seat at the table. Our communities had been destroyed, first by “urban renewal” policies and then by the riots, and they’ve never really come back. The gang violence hasn’t gone away. The violence at the hands of the police hasn’t gone away. And because we have no real voice in government, the programs that are voted on and put in place do us no good or work against us.