THE HOME STRETCH
Bounced from foster place to foster place, Robeson Holloway track star Jasheen now finally has finish line in sight
ONE OF THE BEST track teams in New York practices in the basement of its high school, its members stretching on the cold tile floors, running back and forth along a short stretch of hallway and up and down stairs.
“OK fellows, let’s go! Drive the stairs! Drive the stairs!” shouts coach Dwayne Griffiths, 30, at a recent practice, as the Robeson boys team reaches the basement and turns around to ascend again. Griffiths holds his 1-yearold son, Princeton, with one arm while motioning with the other for the boys to keep moving.
As it trains for the Millrose Games — the regional championship on Friday at the Washington Heights Armory — the team travels once a week to W. 168th St. in Manhattan to get the feel of the track, to feel t he burn of a constant run. But mostly, the athletes train from the basement.
Despite a slim coaching staff and lack of practice space, Griffith’s 4x400m relay team is tops in New York and fifth in the country, running its last event — the Millrose qualifiers only days earlier — in a little over 3 minutes and 22 seconds.
Paul Robeson High School in Crown Heights — which houses Pathways to Technology H.S. (P-Tech) and which President Obama visited last year and praised for its innovation — has yet to catch up its infrastructure with its All-Star track team. P-Tech, which along with Health Careers H.S. will completely overtake Robeson after this June, began a track program only three years ago.
“We of course would like to have better facilities,” principal Rashid Davis says. “You can have the best resources, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the best resources will give the best results.”
Four of Griffiths’ top runners — Jasheen Holloway, Mergaran Poleon, Kiambu Gall and Tahmel Anderson — make up the relay team.
“A lot of these other teams have multiple coaching staff, more runners, a track,” Griffiths says. “If we had a track to practice, who knows how much faster these
guys could be running?” In pract ice, Griffiths pays special at
ten- tion to one of the runners, a tall, charismatic 16-year-old sophomore who is among the most problematic and promising members of the team, shouting, “Come on Jasheen! You gotta be more in front, son!”
A week before, Jasheen Holloway was almost kicked off the team.
In fact, he’d been almost kicked off the team a dozen times since his freshman year, mostly for misbehavior. This time coach was serious — Holloway had refused to follow some simple directions to do push-ups, saying he didn’t feel like doing them.
“I’ve gone through a lot with (Jasheen),” Griffiths says. “It’s not been easy. But I say to myself, ‘Where do you want to see Jasheen four years from now?’ You can either be one of the guys who says, ‘Yeah, back in the day I was fast’ but has nothing to show for it. Or you can be one of those guys who has a story. One of those guys who says, ‘Yo, I came from this position, and here I am now.’ ”
Even before Jasheen Holloway was running track, his life was a marathon. His early years were spent in halfway houses and on relatives’ couches in Staten Island and Brooklyn, the only child of a single mother with an extensive police record and a history of violence.
He has blocked out many of the early memories, but after his mother was sent to prison, he was moved between family members, group homes and foster homes — nine in the past four years.
“All I know is that moment. I will never forget that moment,” Jasheen says. “I got taken away from my mother. I cried so much. I gave her one last hug. And I remember crying. That’s the worst pain you can feel.”
But a brief reunion with his mother when he was 12 brought more violence. The bigger he got, the more
v iolent their fights became: first an argument in a mall witnessed by onlookers; then he was violently dragged out of elementary school by his mother as he begged his principal for help; finally, in the room at her halfway house, a black eye that swelled to the point of blindness. After that, he ran. “I was fast,” Holloway says. “I ran all the way to the hospital. I went to the emergency room and told them, ‘Help me! Help me!’ It was pure instinct.”
Since then, Holloway has chosen not to associate with his mother, and most of his family. His longest stay in any foster or relative’s home has been around a year; and many of those times are fraught with more sad endings — more arguments, upset and displacement.
Jasheen is one of nearly 12,000 foster children in New York City (as of October of 2013) — a historic low, but still a massive burden to the Administration for Children’s Services and thousands of families acting as fosters to these children. Although most stays in foster care end in reunions with the biological family, many children are either adopted or age out of the system.
A stay with a foster family in Staten Island ended badly for Jasheen. Another in Crown Heights didn’t give him a house key, leaving him outside in the cold for hours after school every day. A fight with his cousin left a scar found by a case worker, who immediately removed him from the house. His grades and behavior were suffering. He became prone to occasional outbursts of anger.
“When you move from home to home, you feel like it’s not stable,” Jasheen says. “I’ve felt like everywhere I went, I’m thinking I’m only going to be here for a certain amount of time.”
Last spring, a foster mother in Far Rockaway was close to adopting him, but an argument led her to cancel. She had discouraged Holloway from going to track
practices and meets. He
revolted and was sent back to a group home.
When Jasheen eventually got his clothes and personal belongings back, he found his most important possessions were missing: 32 medals and one trophy earned from placing in various track meets during his freshman year.
“We have not gotten to the bottom of what happened to those medals,” says his foster case worker, Jenea Freeman, 29, who has worked with Jasheen for about two years. “He really wanted those medals back, and unfortunately, we were unable to retrieve them.”
Apparently the foster mother had thrown them in the garbage.
Weeks before his medals were thrown away, Jasheen Holloway had an appointment with his counselor at the Seamen’s Society for Children and Families (SSCF) on Pitkin Ave. in Brownsville.
He had worn those same 32 track medals proudly around his neck to show his therapist. He had taken the A train from Far Rockaway to Crown Heights, and went to school all day with all those medals around his neck.
That’s how much they meant to him.
“All you could hear was me clanging down the hallway,” he says. “My coach was laughing. They were from every meet that I ever won.”
When he arrived at SSCF, he met a 38-year-old foster parent named Ryan Dash — one of the parents the agency works with — in the waiting room. Dash praised the awards around his neck.
“I felt accomplished,” Jasheen says. “I loved those medals.”
Remembers Dash, “He was wearing all of those medals the first time I saw him. He looked like Mr. T. I said keep up the good work.”
A month later, after Jasheen left the Rockaways home, the center placed him in an emergency home — coincidentally, his new foster parent was Dash.
Dash, a tall, heavyset man who is a constant presence in his church, grew up with nine brothers and various foster and adopted children in the Albany Houses in Crown Heights. Dash describes his family as strong and his mother as the neighborhood mom, caring for friends as well as her own kids.
Today Dash works as a supervisor for a residential center for the mentally ill and is one of the few single foster fathers in NYC. He is 6-4 with a calm, introspective manner that puts his children at ease. He has given his life to service, both to the mentally ill at his job and the children he supports. A long day at work ends with him serving dinner to his foster sons and checking their homework, family meetings and movie nights.
He is the only non-kinship single foster father that Freeman has met.
“I wish we had more foster fathers,” she says. “In Jasheen’s case, he’s missing the mother and father bond, and I think he’s really bonding with Mr. Dash because of that father attention that he’s missing.”
“I think I got this from my mother, on a spiritual level,” Dash says. “My mother is always welcoming to everybody, making people comfortable.”
Of the children he fosters, he says, “Even though I didn’t experience what they did, I just want to make them feel comfortable.”
When SSCF called him about putting Jasheen in emergency placement last spring, he was already fostering two younger boys.
Dash lives in a modestly furnished two-bedroom apartment in Brownsville, with one of the bedrooms containing two bunk beds, dressers and toys.
When Jasheen arrived, he confessed his behavior issues to Dash, saying that he has his good days and his bad ones.
“And he was correct,” Dash says. “I applauded him for being up front. I told him, ‘I’m Mr. Dash. If you want to, call me Mr. Dash, or you can call me Dad. Anything you want to call me is OK. I won’t tell anyone on the street that you’re my foster child.’”
“From here on, you are my son.”
The 4x400 is arguably the hardest of the relays to win. A team with one or two stars won’t cut it. The relay requires four superstar runners, all working at capacity.
“The individual races are the glory races,” says Kyle Brazeil, the founder of New York Milesplit, a website that ranks high school and college teams. “But the relays are the hardest thing to coach.”
Three years ago, Griffiths, the current coach, was unhappy with a job at another high school when he got a phone call from Todd Myles, the athletic director at Robeson, to guide its newly formed track team. At that time, there were only three boys and one girl running. Today, there are 21 boys and 26 girls competing. Griffiths, a former track star himself, often brings 1-year-old Princeton to weekend practice, and is in the process of getting his masters in physical education at Brooklyn College. He leads his team by example, encouraging participants to do well in school and communicating with teachers and parents about their academic performance.
To say that track has changed Jasheen Holloway’s life would be an understatement. Since he began the sport last year, his grades and behavior have improved, and his best friends are his teammates.
On his life struggles, he says, “I think, sometimes, why did some of this stuff happen to me? And there’s nothing I can do about it. My coach says to use that stuff as adrenaline to help me. So that’s when you see me run. I’m angry when I run. I’m so mad. I take it out on the track. And it’s the best stress reliever.
“Running is my way to get out. Because I know that when you’re in foster care they help you, but once you’re at a certain age, you’re on your own. Athletics is my way to college.”
At a track meet at the The Armory Track and Field Center on Jan. 25, thousands came from around the region to watch and compete.
A small cluster of Robeson parents sat in a corner section, along with principal Davis, who usually comes to support the team. Nearby sat Robeson school custodian Kirk Smith, 45, who is an avid Robeson fan. Across the aisle sat Gall’s mother, Kerscell Gall, 34, who never misses a track meet and whom the runners fondly call “mom.”
As Jasheen was getting ready to run a 600-meter race, Dash took a seat in the back row. It was the third time he had come to watch Jasheen race, leaving his other foster kids in the care of his mother and going to the Armory straight from work. Dash is the first parental figure to ever take an interest in Jasheen’s extracurriculars.
“We talked about it, and I asked him, ‘How do you feel about me going to your meets?’ And that’s basically it,” Dash says. “I told him I want to support him and his dream, what he wants to become.”
“I never felt like anybody supported me except for my coach,” Jasheen says. “I feel good when he comes to meets. I like the fact that he supports. There was a time when I felt like my coach was the only one supporting me. I didn’t even think I was going to make it.”
As Jasheen started running, he took the lead on the other seven runners at the start of the race, but began dropping behind toward the end. Gall, Dash, Davis and Smith were on their feet, cheering for Jasheen as he raced past. Dash held out his phone to take video of his son’s race. He didn’t win, but his fan club in the stands sent some palpable love down to the track.
After the race, Dash stood up and turned to walk downstairs, “I know he’s feeling bad right now,” he said. “I want to see him.”
Near the track, Griffiths greeted Dash with a handshake, as Jasheen lay on the ground, exhausted and feeling defeated, with a hurt ankle.
“He missed it this time,” Griffiths said. “But it’s not the end of the world.”
Griffiths, who has worked with Jasheen for a year and half, has seen remarkable changes in the young man since his freshman year. Weeks earlier, when he had been ready to kick Jasheen off the team for the last time, he had called Dash into the school to discuss his behavior. They decided that Jasheen needed to stay on.
“I’m driving home in my car thinking, this is his life. And I literally came to tears,” Griffiths says.
Griffiths admits that more than a decade ago, when he was running high school track, he was also a problem teenager who had trouble following instructions. He credits his coach with giving him the extra attention that helped him succeed in high school and track. Griffiths is referred to by members of his team as a mentor, father figure, a teacher — he is also an administrator at the school.
“I look at Jasheen, and I see myself,” Griffiths says. “I was Jasheen.”
When Jasheen was asked what he would say if he were his own coach, he didn’t hesitate. “If I were coaching myself, I’d want to hear good, positive things. Don’t let your past keep you down.”
At a family meeting in late January, with the Millrose Games only weeks away, Jasheen expressed his stress over a sore ankle. His coach had told him to take it easy, so he relaxed in his Brownsville living room.
Dash turned to Jasheen, and said what he had been thinking about for months — adoption.
“I really really want to adopt you,” Dash told Jasheen. “But it’s not my decision. It’s your decision.”
For the first time, Jasheen was silent.
“He kinda shut down. He was shocked,” Dash recalls. “I don’t want to give up. I know I’m not going to give up on him.”
Reflecting on the meeting, Jasheen says, “I was shocked. I didn’t know what to think. I told him you have to give me some time to think about it, because I’m afraid to want to be adopted after the last foster mother said she wanted to adopt me and then she kicked me out.
“I had really wanted to be adopted. She felt like a mother to me. And the fact that she could let me go so quick, I knew it wasn’t really true love.
“I don’t know what I want,” Jasheen adds. “I just want to make it through life. I want to go to college, run track, and make it on my own.”
Until then, he is in the care of a foster father who loves him and a coach who won’t give up on a young runner and a team in Crown Heights that continue to defy the odds.