At Nimitz, Jerry never asked for a handout, which, of course, made people all the more willing to help. That summer, when school let out, some of the coaches recommended him for a job in the concession stand at the public pool. Melvon Anders supervised him. Jerry was popular with the teenage girls, a good employee—never late, never snapped at anyone, never had any money missing from his register. One dry-roasted day in August, someone asked him about his home, and Jerry pulled up Google maps on an iPhone. He showed a group, Anders included, a mountain in Haiti where he grew up. He said that most of his life was spent herding goats. They all listened dumbstruck. Goats? A hut on a mountainside? "Who were we to question his story," Anders says. "He was the first Haitian most of us had ever met."

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Divonte Wallace and Demorri Wilkerson remember meeting Jerry that summer at the UTPB gym, where the best area players gather for pickup games. Divonte and Demorri grew up in Odessa, balling on playgrounds and at the Boys Girls Club. They were on JV together the past two seasons: Demorri was a defensive specialist, Divonte a rail-thin six-foot shooting guard who perfected his form with 250 jump shots a day.

This year, Divonte says, a few colleges were looking to recruit him. Nowhere huge—just some schools around San Antonio—but still, usually recruiters only came to Odessa for football. Things would be different this season. "This was going to be our year," Divonte says. The day Divonte and Demorri met him, Jerry unleashed a 360 dunk over a mesmerized player. "When I heard he was going to play for Permian, I thought it was like a sign from God that we were going to win state," Demorri says.

It wasn't long before Danny Wright heard reports about the six-foot-five wunderkind. The former director of the Boys Girls Club, Wright is more than just a coach in Odessa. Dozens of kids in town call him Dad or Pops. Many have lived with him; he can't remember if it's seventeen or eighteen. The oldest of five in a single-mother household, Wright has been taking care of kids his whole life. It's why God put him on this earth.

On their first meeting, Wright was struck by Jerry's confidence. He asked the boy to dinner and introduced him to the rest of the family. He explained that he has no problem helping kids, but only the ones who really want to improve their lives. "I've had a lot of kids stay with me," Wright told Jerry, "but I didn't ask one of them."

The timing of that dinner couldn't have been better. A few days later, Jerry called Coach Wright with his own housing crisis. His half brother was going back to Florida; Jerry asked Wright if he could stay with him. Coach gave Jerry the usual spiel: my house, my rules. "Everyone helps out," he told him. "If I come in and see leaves on the porch, I know you saw those same leaves. I shouldn't have to come in and tell someone to sweep them." In Wright's house, kids are kids and the adults are adults, and there would never be any confusion on that.

He told Jerry he could sleep in the same room as his stepson Dominique, who was also on the Permian basketball team. Did Wright ask Dominique how he felt about the idea of sharing his room?

"Why would I do that?"

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Everybody thinks about it at some point: What life would be like if we were given a second chance, a fresh start in a place where nobody knows our past. Jerry began his first year at Permian on a mission, running to school from Coach's house. Lots of people saw him out there in the hot August sun. Three miles each way, jogging through the streets like he was Rocky or something.