The scoreboard does not work. The grass football field is balding and a night home game is just a passing thought.

For Locke High standout quarterback Akili Roberson, the poor playing conditions are just a minor distraction compared with other obstacles he faces in striving for college and, with luck, future football stardom.

There is the pressure to keep up the stellar performances that have attracted college recruiters. There is the Scholastic Aptitude Test looming in the near future, and the concern that budget problems are diluting his education. There is the lingering wariness of the gang members he passes on the street every day on his way to school from his Watts home.

But there is also the support of his family and his coach, and that could prove more than enough to keep Roberson on the right road to his dreams.


“I want to make it to college, but I know that it is going to be hard,” said Roberson, a 17-year-old junior. “I just have to stay confident in what I’m doing.”

At 6-feet and 180 pounds, Roberson fits the mold of the typical all-around athlete. He has good speed with great explosiveness and balance. Scouts like his arm strength and passing accuracy.

He already has put Locke in position to win the Eastern League title with his three-touchdown performance--two passing and one rushing--in the Saints’ 20-0 win over Garfield early in the season.

Locke Coach E.C. Robinson has coached four All-City Section quarterbacks in his 17 years with the Saints, including former Colorado star Darian Hagan, and he said Roberson may be the best.


“He has all the tools to be great,” said Robinson. “The key for him (Roberson) is to stay out of gangs and to hit the books hard to have the grades to go to college.”

Robinson and Roberson’s mother, Monja Willis, are making sure that Roberson does just that.

“I didn’t get him into sports because I thought he was talented,” Willis said. “I did it to keep him busy. First it was football and then it was basketball. As long as he was doing something constructive.

“I want him to get out of L.A. so he can get a chance to know more of a variety of people,” she said. “That’s why I sent him to a Valley school when he was younger.”


Willis had her son bused to the San Fernando Valley in grade school and wanted him to complete high school there, but sports changed those plans.

From his first Pop Warner game at age 8, Roberson was a star. He was addicted to football long before that, sparked by stories his father, Richard, told him about his playing days at Jefferson High and East Los Angeles College.

Roberson played wide receiver in the Pop Warner league before being moved to quarterback. His first position coach was his mother.

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“I had never played quarterback before and she became my coach,” said Roberson, who rushed and passed last year for nearly 2,000 yards as a sophomore. “She would go outside in the streets with me almost every day and teach me how to throw. She really inspired me to practice.”

When it came time for Roberson to pick a high school, he decided on Hamilton. But dissatisfied with the school’s football program, he went back to playing “midget” ball--a version of Pop Warner football for older youths--near his home.

Enter Robinson.

“I went to a local game on a Sunday and I saw this kid just dominating everyone,” Robinson said. “I asked, ‘Why is this kid playing midget ball when he should be in high school?’


“Turned out, I was sitting by his parents and after talking to his mother he enrolled into Locke after we found out how close they lived to the school.”

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Robinson likens Roberson to other standout quarterbacks he has coached, including Hagan, a three-time All-City standout, and Leon Otis, a two-time All-City selection.

Hagan left Locke and played four years at Colorado before graduating last spring, but Otis flunked out of Nebraska and was killed in 1985, a year after leaving Locke, by gang gunfire.


Robinson has kept a watchful eye on Roberson ever since he arrived at Locke in 1990. An improving student with a 2.5-grade point average, Roberson is concentrating on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, but he fears that recent school budget cuts could impede his progress.

“I know that I need to stay on top of things in school, but it’s really hard now,” Roberson said. “For example, the first month of school, I have three classes that have had substitute teachers nearly every day. I haven’t had any real homework, but yet I’m supposed to be getting an education. Hopefully, we’ll get some permanent teachers soon.”

Three years ago, Roberson would not have been worried about having homework, but these days he doesn’t want to be left behind academically.

“Getting to college is what I want now and football is where it’s at for me,” he said. “It has definitely helped me become a better student and now it’s up to me to keep it going.”