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The Best Gift One Can Give Is That Of Hope

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 25, 2007

Updated: 12/24/2007 11:11 pm

There is still a spot in most of us that understands what this morning really ought to be. Whether you can't see the floor through the mountain of discarded wrapping paper right now while the kids run amok, or you're flying solo, or any point in between, inside we understand the best Christmas present never comes in a box.

So in that spirit, we bring you the story of four Tampa men. You may know some of their names from the sports pages, but this is a story of giving and caring and all those other sentiments that give life its higher meaning. It's appropriate to tell this on Christmas, but it isn't really a Christmas story because these men give year 'round.

They are, as Ricky Sailor said, "a relay team" that specializes in giving forward. There is no telling where the race will end, but we have a pretty good idea where it started. When Tyrone Keys was 14, he said "a guy took me under his wing and showed me the right way to do things, the right way to be. He was there for me. So I've just tried to keep it going."

Keys, who played six seasons in the NFL - including two with the Bucs - after graduating from Mississippi State, founded the All-Sports Community Service program in Tampa. Through that program, Keys met Willie Terrell, who played at Louisiana-Lafayette, and paid his debt forward.

Willie didn't forget. He was there when Sailor needed him. And they were all there for Preston Nicholson.

Now, Nicholson understands the gift he has been given - hope, a chance to dream, and a guiding hand. So he returns the same to kids at Metropolitan Ministries, and so the relay continues.

"Tyrone passed the baton to Willie Terrell, who passed it to me, and now I have passed it to Preston," Sailor said. "Preston is passing it on by starting his own relay team. He is doing exactly what we want him to do. We have mentored him and now it's his turn to pass it on."

Overcame Obstacles

Nicholson just completed his final season of football at Culver-Stockton College, an NAIA school in Canton, Mo. He caught 84 passes and was named to the NAIA All-America team. There was a time, though, when he could have become just another statistic.

His parents divorced when he was a baby. Then, after playing high school football here for three years - first at Sickles, then a season at Hillsborough - he had to move to Madison, Wis., with his dad for his senior year.

"My whole deal was to come back to Tampa. I told my dad after I graduated, I wanted a one-way ticket back to Tampa."

That was in 2003. He stayed with friends, bouncing from house to house, until one of them introduced Nicholson to Terrell, who knew Keys from Tampa Catholic. Willie T., as he is known, had overcome his own obstacles and knew what Preston was going through.

"He wanted to be a success," Keys said. "He wanted to leave the projects. He wanted to help people, but he understood they have to help themselves, too."

Terrell let Preston stay at his place, but there were conditions.

"He was at a crossroads," Terrell said. "He wanted to go to college but he didn't have the challenge in his life to get there. So I sat him down and gave him goals and a plan."

Terrell also helped track down film of Nicholson's high school playing days. It consisted of just four plays, but he dressed them up on a computer and made them look snazzy before he gave them to Keys, who sent them out. That's how Nicholson wound up at Culver-Stockton.

But that wasn't the end of the story.

"The coach there called Tyrone and said that Preston was a great kid, and did he have any more to send his way? I told Tyrone I wanted to meet Preston," Sailor said.

Sailor had played cornerback at Texas Tech but was working for Keys' agency. He and Preston hit it off immediately. They talked about football. They talked about life.

"When he saw people trying to help him, he didn't fight it like a lot of people do," Sailor said.

And he passed it on.

Helping Others

Preston, now 22, spent a summer working with kids at Metropolitan Ministries and volunteers there when he's home on school break. He played with them and supported them, but mostly, he was there for them.

"Everybody's a role model," Terrell said. "You don't have to be a pro athlete or an actor to be that. People are watching everything you do and you'll be perceived for your actions. It's a whole community of people doing this for each other. What I gave to Preston was first given to me, and Preston will pass it forward."

He graduates next May with a degree in business administration and he has a plan.

"Being around the kids meant I didn't focus on my own troubles," he said. "My focus was on the kids and helping, helping, helping. Now I want to branch off what Mr. Keys has done and maybe start my own organization."

Think of all the people it took to get him there. Think of what it means for other kids who can't possibly know yet how all this will affect them.

"It takes a village," Sailor said. "You have to learn to be accountable, to think of others."

The village comes bearing the most important gift one can give - the gift of hope because someone cares about you.

So, Merry Christmas? Of course.

But Merry Forever? Even better.

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