Why are kids from Miami so good at football? Part of the answer might lie in an unlikely person: Luther Campbell, best known outside of South Florida for his raunchy exploits as a member of the 1990s rap group 2 Live Crew. And yes, he's still known for those exploits in South Florida too. But he's also made a name for himself as one of the area's foremost patrons of young football talent.

In fact, Campbell became infamous (well, more infamous) in the late 1980s and early 1990s for being too much of a patron to players at the University of Miami. Though never an official booster of the football program, Campbell was a major presence and allegedly orchestrated a bounty system that involved cash for sacks or interceptions. He's always denied those allegations over the years — though he's sometimes done so with with a wink and a nod.

Around the same time as the Hurricanes were on the rise, Campbell also spent tens of thousands of dollars to start a youth-league football program in Liberty City. Campbell said he started the Optimists program so kids in his neighborhood could stay home and play rather than having to take a bus to Miami Beach, as he had done years before. (His own career didn't go much further than the beach, where he played football for a high school on the tonier side of the Biscayne Bay.)

These days, Campbell spends most afternoons at Northwestern High (the school where Central's Roland Smith used to coach), where he works as a defensive coordinator. Gone are the black bandanna and rope-sized gold chains of his youth. Today, 52-year-old "Coach Luke" wears a black long-sleeved shirt and black shorts with his black cap turned backward on his head.

"Motion-motion-motion-motion-motion." Campbell uses a rapid-fire staccato with his team that's not unlike the one he used as a cheerful hype man inviting ample-bottomed women onstage during concerts. It's just hours before the Central-BTW game, and Campbell is painstakingly taking his players through their game plan. His work here is no vanity project; Campbell clearly knows the 4-3 defense.

Music took Campbell around the world, but football brought him back to Liberty City — an area with block after block of boarded-up buildings, burned-out homes and large mounds of rubble where generations of families used to live. The Huffington Post recently dubbed Liberty City "Miami's worst neighborhood." Football is one of the area's scant sources of pride, if only for a few hours at a time.

"I always said if I ever made some money, I would start a program at my own park," Campbell says. "We started something that I don't think any other program in the country can compare to."

That program, along with several others in inner-city Miami, has produced hundreds, if not thousands, of college players and several professionals over more than 25 years. A number of assistant high school coaches have also emerged from those leagues, effectively creating a pipeline from youth ball to high school that keeps the best players from being poached by suburban and private high school teams — or by other sports. The level of competition is always top-notch, and South Florida — Miami in particular — has developed a reputation as one of the top producers of elite football talent in the country. Schools like Booker T. Washington can produce more college players than some entire states.

"Kids that used to come out of there would go to Miami Beach [High], Miami High, or other schools," says Blustein, the recruiting writer. "But now they've got the whole Overtown on lockdown. Now they're tapping into that talent and nobody comes in there at all." If Michael Oher, the simultaneously massive and graceful main character of The Blind Side, had grown up here, he never would've had to rely on luck and generosity to end up getting trained as an offensive tackle — or ended up whooping on overmatched opponents at a private suburban school. He would've been doing drills, catching coaches' eyes, and facing off against fellow future stars from the time he was about eight years old.

NFL running back and former Central High star Willis McGahee played his first organized football games in an Optimist league. "We eat, sleep, and dream of football down here," says McGahee, who has rushed for more than 8,000 yards in his nine-year NFL career. "There's nothing else. That's all we do. We all want to get out." In other words, Miami kids are so good at football, perhaps, because it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Every athletic young kid dreams only about football, and every adult is looking for kids with a knack for football and only football.

Coaches, players, and parents also point to another factor: poverty. Many of the boys see football as their best way out of often-desperate circumstances. Smith and his staff often pay for post-practice food out of their own pockets to ensure some of his players have at least one meal a day. Campbell talks at length about players on his team who are homeless, have parents or siblings in jail, or can't afford cleats. Many players know of classmates and former teammates killed on nearby streets. "We deal with so much at these schools," Campbell says. "It's very difficult."

That might be why no one talks much here, if at all, about concussions and traumatic brain injuries and the wages of pre-pubescent collisions. Those concerns are reserved for children with more options and even more security. In Liberty City, life can be more dangerous away from the field.