Friends...Heroes

(One of the things I most want to do in this space is tell the stories of inspiring, interesting people.
Today, I'm going to re-produce one I reported and wrote a couple of years ago at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Since I'm making no money on this site (yet, right??) I figure I can cut and paste and let you read it here, in case you missed it. But the AJC owns the copy write. I'll try to track these young men down and update the story if there is interest.)


Every school has a student who looks like Pope High School's Steve Kelley, easy to pick out, harder to really see.

Throughout the halls, "different" is the word most used to describe these kids. Or special. Or challenged. Or needy. The medical term, whatever it is, doesn't matter.

Likewise, every school has kids who look like Trey Clark, who roams the same Cobb County halls as Kelley. In a sea of moving bodies, they are harder to pick out, but easier to look at.

The worlds of a Steve and a Trey intersect every day at almost every school, usually with a casual nod of the head, sometimes with 15 seconds of charity-minded conversation, occasionally with a mean-spirited prank or insult.

Rarely do a Steve and a Trey become best friends.

Theirs is a story of one kid helping the other to find his place, one looking up to the other as a hero, both learning something from the other.

"Trey is my best friend. He's the best friend anyone could ever have because he is always there for me, " said Steve, who has a rare form of autism. "I always feel safe when I am with him. He's big. He won't let people say mean things to me. He takes me places that I can't go by myself. I have known Trey for a long time. I hope I will keep knowing him even when we are old."

Then hear Trey.

"I am proud to say that I am his friend, not the other way around, " he said. "Steve could make friends with anybody he wanted to, but he chose me."

So who's the hero of the story?

> > >

Steve's parents had a prayer for each of their three children, upon their birth. For Steve, the plea was from Luke 2:52, that he would "increase in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man."

A couple of weeks ago, the Pope High School student body elected Steve, 19, as Mr. Pope, the senior who best represents what the school stands for.

Steve's favor with man was affirmed.

But the almost-universal support that Steve enjoys now didn't come easily.

Knowing what is and isn't appropriate never came naturally to him. Neither did grasping academic assignments, getting them in on time or doing what it takes to be in position to graduate.

Socially, Trey, 18, taught Steve just by including him on outings. Academically, he tutored him weekly.

"I don't at all see Steve as a responsibility, " Trey said. "It's a friendship. It's normal. We talk about girls and sports. I try to help him with girls a little bit because he does get really nervous."

Steve sums up his relationship with his friend sweetly and succinctly.

"Since fifth grade, Trey and I have been best friends, " he said. "He takes me to football games, basketball games, baseball games, Taco Bell. He and others here have made me feel like they genuinely care for and love me and are willing to protect me."

The two were at a Pope basketball game last year --- one of Steve's favorite things to do.

It never mattered how good or bad Pope was, or whether he was watching the boys or girls play. He was the biggest, most vocal and most visible fan.

"We were playing Lassiter and they were chanting: 'What about Football. What about Football, ' because they had beaten us that year, " Trey said.

We started chanting: "S.A.T., S.A.T., " bragging on Pope's academic reputation.

"We were out in the parking lot, around some Lassiter kids, and Steve started chanting: "S.A.T., S.A.T. Not good."

Trey fits the mold of a protector. At 6-foot-1, 215 pounds, he lettered in football as a sophomore, playing tight end and defensive end. Two knee injuries have limited his play the last couple of years.

But even more than his size, his mom, Linda Clark, said it's his heart that really makes him a protector.

"Ever since he was little, he reached out to others in a very warm and loving way, " she said. "It doesn't surprise me that he developed this kind of relationship with Steve."

Nowadays, the two are constant companions. Trey is constantly telling Steve what to do --- not in a bossy way, but gently and quietly.

"Socially, he has no boundaries, " Steve's mom, Tootie Kelly, said of her son. "He doesn't get innuendo and has never heard a rhetorical question."

Like the day football coach Bob Swank asked his team, "What the heck are y'all doing?"

Steve, the team trainer, offered up an answer, to Trey's chagrin.

"I was like, 'Steve, man, not now.' "

> > >

It'd be a lie to say Trey has never done anything for Steve out of sympathy.

But it happened only once.

The two were casual buddies from fifth grade through ninth. At least that's what Trey thought.

Then Steve built up the nerve to invite Trey to join his family for an Easter tradition: attending a play, "The Passion of the Christ." For Steve, including an outsider was akin to a boy asking a girl out for a first date.

"As adults, we're thinking, please don't get your feelings hurt if another ninth-grade boy doesn't want to go with him and his grandmother to the 'Passion.' We were afraid he'd get laughed at or feelings hurt, " Tootie Kelley said.

Sure, Trey said. He'd go to "The Passion of the Christ" with Steve and his family.

"It's the only time I did something with Steve just to be nice, " Trey said. "It's never been about being nice to him since then."

The play inspired Trey, for sure. But it also caused him to see a deeper side of Steve. For whatever reason, it was a jumping-off point for the two.

Trey delivered a speech he had written for a school leadership project this year. It was titled "A Hero and a Friend."

"Our relationship took a giant step when I received a call in April of my freshman year from one of the best mothers I know, Tootie Kelley, " Trey wrote. "She began by telling me of a tradition Steve and his grandmother, also known as Nana, shared. Every year they will go to see the play 'The Passion of the Christ' and then head over to the Varsity.

"Going to that play on Palm Sunday is one of the best decisions I have ever made."

> > >

Trey plans on attending Auburn next fall. Steve hopes to go Chattahoochee Tech.

"No matter what, " Trey said, "I want him to always be able to call me, when I'm married, when he's married, wherever I live, I see us being close friends forever."

Steve doesn't even want to think about next fall.

"I'll be sad when he goes to college, " he said. "But I'm going to college, too. I'll be a fan of Auburn."

Who knows what Trey will be doing in 10 years, or where Steve will be.

Tootie Kelley knows that Steve likely will never drive a car and might not ever be totally independent. Trey will likely graduate from college and one day settle down with a family.

In other words, life happens. And best friends in high school don't always stay close friends.

But what has already happened, in Steve's life and in Trey's, can never be erased. Neither is the same person for having known the other.