Track Star Stumbles, Falls, Tries To Pass Lessons To Next Generation

OAKLAND, Calif. - Darrell Hampton knows what it's like to stumble and fall.

A former high-school wrestling star, he spent time in prison for robbery. Years later, as director of a community center in one of Oakland's toughest neighborhoods, Hampton went to jail again, after a police officer mistook him as a menace during a fight at the center.

But Hampton also knows what it feels like to pick himself up and persevere - and that's the message he is preaching to inner-city youths, with stunning success.

For the past nine years, Hampton has devoted his life to a group of teenage girls who make up the Acorn Community Center track team, working 70 hours a week to train them, shuttling them to meets around the country, and even spending his money on shoes and uniforms.

The result: In a neighborhood where many girls are on welfare or are pregnant, his runners are on the honor roll or are in college. Many are national champions recruited by coaches around the country. And two of them - including a 14-year-old Union City girl - might qualify for the Olympic trials this summer.

"I try to lead by example," said Hampton, 33, whose cramped office in the Acorn housing project in West Oakland is lined with trophies and recruiting letters stapled on the walls. "I got into trouble when I was young. But I did not give up. Now I'm doing quite well."

It's not easy going from marginal to first-class. Joining the Acorn track club is like joining a religion. There are lots of rules. Kids have to be willing to run six days a week and show up on time for practice. They must maintain a B average in school and aren't permitted to sit in the back of class. Drugs are banned, junk food is out. And all the girls must perform about five hours of community service a week.

"It's like your parents," said Aisha Margain, who travels from Cesar Chavez High School in Union City to train with Hampton. "There's never time to do anything wrong. You're always busy. You go to school. You go to track practice. You go home. You do your homework. You go to sleep."

The girls do it, Hampton said, because they know the alternative is worse.

"Each of them knows someone who started running track and quit," said Hampton, a muscular man who always wears a digital stopwatch around his neck. "One girl who quit came back and had so many scars on her, she looked like a zipper. A lot of others are involved with the drug trade, or are teenage mothers, continuing the cycle of poverty. But if you do it my way, you end up with an opportunity to be productive."

When Hampton started the track club in 1987, he had no assurances he could make a difference in people's lives. He only knew he had to work hard to overcome his missteps and thought that lesson could serve others well.

Hampton grew up in nearby Richmond, and his parents worked multiple jobs to provide a comfortable life. He did well in high school - he got good grades and was a triple-jumper and a wrestling star - but got into trouble after graduation. At 18, Hampton was convicted of robbing a bank-teller machine, and served a year in jail in 1982.

"I wasn't paying attention," said Hampton, who insists he was framed. "Instead of the value being to help others and give back to the community, my philosophy was to be out in the streets, partying."

But instead of giving up after his release, he became more determined.

That stubbornness served him well while developing the track team. At first, Hampton had to beg girls to join. When they trained, they ran past decaying, boarded-up crack houses. On one run, a dealer confronted Hampton with a gun and demanded the club steer clear of his turf. In a brazen move, Hampton wrestled the gun to the ground - earning the respect of the homeboys in the project. They soon supported the runners, eventually even yelling, "Make way. Make way. The track team is coming, the track team is coming."

In time, the girls developed confidence and became stronger runners. But that wasn't enough. Sometimes they couldn't focus on practice because there wasn't enough food at home or because domestic violence had turned their thoughts elsewhere.

So Hampton assumed a larger role for the girls, and eventually forged a new kind of family. He foraged up the girls' first "uniforms" - baggy shorts and shirts from a surplus store - and eventually convinced friends to sew hot-pink spandex team uniforms. (Reebok, a team sponsor, now supplies shoes and clothes). He instituted endless fund raisers, from bake sales to crab feasts to recycling drives to raise enough money to take the team to meets across the country. He insisted the girls do well in school and even required them to hand in their report cards. He became a surrogate father, thinking nothing of rushing out in the middle of the night to intervene in a crisis.

"For a lot of kids down there (at Acorn), Darrell is like a safe haven," said Oakland police officer Margaret Dixon, who enlisted Hampton in 1987 to help with the Police-Athletic League's track club. "They look up to him. They can lay their problems on him. They may have a dysfunctional home but there's someone else who cares."

The whole program almost fell apart, however, in 1990. Hampton was trying to break up a fight inside the community center when a number of Oakland police cars sped through the complex. Hampton, pool cue in hand, went outside to warn the police that there were children playing. One officer, however, viewed Hampton as menacing and roughed him up and jailed him.

The arrest outraged residents of the housing project, who denounced the police department. The arresting officer was censured by a police review panel and a court later ruled that Hampton's civil rights were violated. He received a generous settlement from the city.

But the arrest took a toll, Hampton said. He threw himself even harder into his work, to show the world he was not a criminal and to prove his track team was the best. It apparently worked: His 400-meter relay team won national high school titles in 1993 and 1994. But his personal life suffered. He broke up with his girlfriend and saw his small daughter less than he wanted. He was burned out.

His students' enthusiasm pulled him through, and continues to motivate him. On one recent rainy day, the team gathered for leg-strengthening exercises in the cavernous gym at Skyline High School, where Hampton also works as a track coach. They lined up next to the bleachers and started to skip, jump and walk. During their rest periods, they pored over a Reebok catalog, talked about which math class they preferred, and giggled.

Then they crowded into the team's aging van - which former Oakland A's player Dave Stewart sold to Hampton for $1 - and rode back to the community center to lift weights and do more drills.

"He's not just like a track coach," team member Ryan Peters said. "Most track coaches like you to be the fastest on the team. I'm not the fastest, but I'm loyal and that's what Darrell looks for. Even if I don't make it in track, I'll make it to college."

It's a description Hampton agrees with.

"That's what our program is about," he said. "It's not about running fast. It's about education and getting a second chance. If all I can offer them is some medals and a memory, that's no good. I've basically used them."