On the Gators, "probably more than 80 percent of the kids come from single-parent homes, and it may be higher than that," says Lisa Fitts, the team's program director. "They either don't have a father or mother at home or neither one, and maybe they're living with their grandmother."
In this environment, McCown, a coach of the Gators junior midgets team, was a precious commodity, a male adult the kids relied on. Fitts said she never knew McCown's cell phone number because she didn't need to. "I'd just look around and he was always there on the field."
Lanky at 6 feet tall with a high forehead and baggy clothes, he was something of a kid himself. Kids were drawn to him not only because he knew football but because he was playful and teasing and talked about video games.
On the practice field a few blocks north and west of Johns Hopkins Hospital, he'd run laps with the kids, lead them in calisthenics and demonstrate a linebacker's hunched stance. After practice, he'd often take the kids for pizza or help them with their homework.
One night, he invited a dozen Gators to spend the night in the home he shared with his mother. The kids slept on comforters and blankets on the floor, beneath trophies celebrating the players' achievements.
Sometimes, parents say, McCown and the other coaches helped the kids pay their registration fee, as much as $100.
The players responded to McCown's attention with endless requests for his time away from the field. "Can you take us to the movies?" they'd ask. "Can we play cards?"
McCown wasn't paid for coaching, but he received payback of a different sort.
On Jan. 10, 2003, a gospel chorus sang hymns as five men and three women assembled on the stage of a packed auditorium on Johns Hopkins University's East Baltimore campus. There was a breast cancer support volunteer, a homeless advocate and an anti-smoking crusader. And there was McCown, a clerk in the university's health system, in an olive double-breasted suit bought for the occasion. A Hopkins committee had singled out each of them to receive community service awards at a ceremony marking the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The nearly 1,000 attending included Harry Belafonte, accepting a humanitarian award, and actor Danny Glover, who was one of McCown's favorite stars. In front of all of them, McCown heard himself lauded for "unselfish volunteer work." And as a role model and mentor who stressed the importance of school and overcoming life's tribulations.
