Kevin Sherrington

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When he left South Oak Cliff for Yale in the fall of 2005, Casey Gerald took with him a valedictorian's standing, a thick coat, his father's genes and the expectations of a community.

The expectations came in all types and sizes. The weight of it nearly overwhelmed him.

People told him that a kid from South Oak Cliff going to Yale was "the most amazing thing that ever happened to us."

Old people in church cried at the news. People in the room cried on signing day.

Casey didn't know what to make of the emotions. Until a coach called, he'd never even heard of Yale.

But the people who raised him, mentored him, counseled him, encouraged him, loved him, they knew what Yale meant.

Casey Gerald

"It was a pretty intimidating feeling," he says now. "I felt that there were so many people who expected this to produce something special .

"And not just for me, but for them."

Of course, there were other expectations for the son of Rod and Debra Gerald, too.

He'll be home before Christmas, one teacher predicted. Doesn't matter if his father was a football star at Ohio State. Rod was a druggie, wasn't he? Debra, too. A crack baby had no chance on that white bread, highbrow campus. No way Casey will play football.

No way he'll ever graduate from Yale.

He'd come back home from that first fall in New Haven, Conn., and people would ask bold questions.

When you coming back home? Where you gonna transfer?

When you gonna drop out?

He wouldn't lie. He felt like leaving. New Haven was cold and the campus foreign. A "culture shock" for a kid from an urban environment, one of his Yale teammates called it.

Casey Gerald (left) has started three seasons at cornerback for Yale.

But Casey couldn't quit. He couldn't do it because of the people who put their faith in him. He couldn't quit because of the people who didn't.

"It might be hell," he told himself, "but four years is a given."

He now calls his goal "a naïve resolve." But it kept him in school, nonetheless.

"I knew that somehow, some way, I was going to do it," he says, "because the alternatives were not nearly as promising."

He couldn't quit because of teachers like Gwendolyn Davis and Demorris Vance and Brenda Cox. Be special, they told him. He couldn't quit because of his sister, Natashia, who'd been SOC's valedictorian five years before him, who left Xavier University to come home and help raise him when his parents abandoned the responsibility. He couldn't quit because of his grandmother, Clarice Gerald, who set standards that her own son couldn't match.

When Casey called home from Yale to tell his grandmother he'd made a 98 on an Italian test, Clarice told him she expected a 100 the next time.

Some people don't handle such pressure well. Looking back on it now, Casey says it saved him.

"Quite honestly, athletically, academically, it was a daunting thing for a kid who hadn't developed his own persona," he says. "But the benefit of that now is, I'm my own biggest critic. The expectations I have for myself surpass anything anyone else has for me.

"The debt I owe all those people for their fundamental sacrifice, though, is to make sure every day that I do something that doesn't squander my great blessings."

Casey Gerald didn't drop out, he didn't transfer, he didn't come home. He's started three seasons at cornerback for Yale. He'll graduate in May with a 3.69 grade point average and a degree in political science. A Rhodes Scholar semifinalist, he's been accepted into Harvard's business school. Last week, he found out that, along with Missouri's Chase Daniel and Texas Tech's Graham Harrell, he's one of 15 finalists for the Draddy Trophy, presented by the National Football Foundation to college football's top scholar athletes.

Or as Archie Manning, the NFF's chairman, put it: "They are the true ambassadors of our mission and a testament to the positive influence of football's ability to build our nation's future leaders."

What kind of leader is Casey? He founded and is president of the Black Men's Union, a society to help men from similar backgrounds adjust to Yale's environment. Out of the BMU sprang a mentoring program for New Haven youth.

FILE PHOTO 2004

Former SOC star Casey Gerald (center) will graduate from Yale in May with a 3.69 grade point average and a degree in political science.

Casey stresses that the BMU was never meant to be an organization apart, but rather a means to work in concert with other groups on campus.

"We're gonna have to see that we're all in this together," he says.

Members of Yale's football team don't doubt his sincerity. His coach, Jack Siedlecki, calls Casey "one of the greatest kids I've ever coached." Brandt Hollander, who graduated last spring, told a campus publication recently that Casey is "the best natural leader I've ever met. To see him on campus, he's like the mayor."

Casey's intelligence is surpassed only by his wisdom. He holds no bitterness toward the people who didn't believe in him or the parents who deserted him.

"They definitely have their troubles," he says, softly. "I don't really look at them as parents, per se.

"But at the very least, they gave me good genes."

The rest came as the result of hard work and standards set by Natashia and Clarice and teachers and counselors and principals and church members, an entire community.

Yale, too. He grew to love the school. He'll be sad to leave it.

He has no idea what his life holds after this spring. Politics, maybe social causes. Something different. Special.

Peering into that blindingly bright future, he says, "I'm looking forward to what's gonna happen."

So do we all, Casey. So do we all.