Built by the broken: Pahokee thankful for brotherhood after struggle-ridden 2023 season
PAHOKEE — Thanksgiving looked a little different at Anquan Boldin Stadium in 2023.
Instead of starting their morning with one last practice at Pahokee High before competing in region championship on the fourth Thursday of November, Blue Devil football coaches and players were able to turn on the TV to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
In a rare season, Pahokee's journey came to an early end. Early by the standards of the six-time state champion, documentary-warranting program ("Outta the Muck," available with PBS Passport).
The Blue Devils' final outing came in a region semifinal at Williston. The undefeated Red Devils saw the scoreboard to 52-17 and Pahokee a 6-5 finish on Nov. 17.
All things considered, 2023 was a year against the odds. In the holiday week, players and coaches are thankful for coming out on the other side, and the family that was built through the adversities.
"My experience at Pahokee has been great," senior captain Jenorris Wilcher Jr. said.
After playing for neighboring Glades Day in 2021, the safety and running back transferred to play with more of the guys he "grew up with" and coaches who made him a "better player and person on and off the field."
A 9-3 run for a region title set high expectations in the small-town community that thrives on football and sugar cane.
Five-star quarterback Austin Simmons and four-star receiver Hardley Gilmore were bound for what Pahokee believed would be not just a possible but a probable state title run. After last year’s season-ending brawl at Hawthorne, the Blue Devils were ready for a new page.
Little did they know then that they’d be rewriting the whole book.
Three months later, on Feb. 22, then-Pahokee coach Emmanuel Hendrix was handed a six-week suspension for "improper contact" with incoming student-athletes. Twelve days following that news from the Florida High School Athletic Association, Hendrix was fired.
In late April, Simmons, then committed to Florida, shared his intentions to follow and play his junior season as a Terrier. Simmons competed in Moore Haven's spring game before reclassifying and flipping his recruitment to Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss — which would also take three-star senior linebacker DeeJay Holmes Jr. — that June.
What couldn't be replaced
Pahokee's journey to filling in the gaps officially began in the summer. There was one role, though, that the Blue Devils couldn't replace.
Before Hendrix, Simmons and the player's father, David, who also served the team as defensive coordinator, made the move to Moore Haven, junior Jeremiah Dukes, a linebacker who helped forge Pahokee's back-to-back region championships, was killed in a car crash.
On April 6, the 17-year-old and a friend, Brandon Honeycutt, 16, were passengers in a 2021 Dodge Challenger driven by an unnamed 17-year-old male when the vehicle spun into a collision with a 2005 Ford F-150 driven by 78-year-old Bertrand Dadaille on State Road 715 between Hooker Highway and Hatcher Road.
The report from Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office indicated the Challenger was northbound, traveling "at a high rate of speed passing vehicles on the left" before the driver lost control in the 3500 block of 715, north of Glades Central High School. It began to twist counterclockwise into the southbound lanes, where it crashed into Dadaille's truck. Dukes and Honeycutt were pronounced dead at the scene, and the tight-knit communities of Pahokee and Belle Glade that hug Lake Okeechobee were left in shambles.
Dukes' head coach, Hendrix, described himself as at a loss for words, along with everyone in the Muck.
It wouldn't be until after the arrival of Matthew Sparrowhawk, Pahokee's current head coach, that the Blue Devils knew how they wanted to honor the young life lost too soon and the fun-loving teammate known as "Airplane."
Dukes received the posthumous honor of team captain for the 2023 season alongside Wilcher and Wilfred Demezier.
"Jeremiah was a great teammate and also a great friend," Wilcher said. "Every time we took the field, we just kept him in our minds and believed that's who we do it for."
"He really means a lot to the football team and the city of Pahokee."
In a city that thrives on the sport, the Blue Devils remembered there was more to life than football. That, for once, overcoming their trials wouldn't be determined by a scoreboard.
Pahokee thankful to be on other side of tough 2023
Pahokee embarked in the fall at Santaluces with a 38-14 loss. The team had yet to find an answer for who would serve as starting quarterback and fielded its first defense without Dukes and company.
The next week at Inlet Grove, Pahokee remembered what Dukes would've wanted: a 39-6 victory.
Granted, if you knew Dukes, he would have preferred the shutout. Pahokee would get that in Week 3 at Palm Beach Lakes, 43-0.
Hosting Palm Beach Central in Week 4, Pahokee would force overtime in hopes of starting a streak. The Blue Devils came just four points short of upsetting the returning Class 4M state semifinalists — and potentially an entirely different narrative for the season.
Pahokee got back in the win column at the end of September with a 34-18 win over Palm Beach Gardens, following up the next week with a 27-13 victory at Dwyer, whom the Blue Devils lost to, 14-12, in 2022. Another opportunity to shock the world came with Atlantic's trip to the Muck on Oct. 6, when a W for the Eagles, one of Palm Beach County's best teams this fall, was decided by just two points.
In Week 8, Class 1M region semifinalist Benjamin would hand Pahokee its greatest margin of defeat, winning 35-0.
A victim of scheduling struggles and teams not wanting to make the lengthy hike out to the Muck, the Blue Devils didn't take the field again until a little less than a month later when they'd keep the Muck Bowl trophy against rival Glades Central for the third consecutive season.
Despite a 55-22 final score and a Glades Central team that's seen better days, Sparrowhawk said Pahokee scoring in the fashion it did was "nothing short of a miracle." Even though the Blue Devils are in a small Class 1R, their postseason run — starting with a 56-0 shutout against Dixie County — was another unlikely feat.
"If we were healthy, we would've been what people thought we were going to be," Sparrowhawk said.
Blue Devils getting healthy after the holiday
Pahokee's 6-5 finish took place amid a string of injuries that left star players either on the bench or playing through the pain.
"I would say the injuries was the hardest to overcome for me, specifically," Wilcher said. He was without his starting O-line since Week 1. A nagging ankle injury caused the Western Carolina commit to sit out for games like Atlantic.
Demezier, who served Pahokee as an offensive lineman, defensive tackle and tight end, suffered a hamstring tweak. Utah Tech commit and senior Demarion Jenkins was a transfer from Orlando Christian Prep, a 4.39-running speedster expected to terrorize both sides of the ball for the Blue Devils.
He was left benched for the season by an ACL injury.
"We overcame those by just fighting till the end each and every week. No matter the outcome," Wilcher said.
With Pahokee High's athletic trainer being moved to Atlantic High in the offseason, recovery was next to impossible.
Much of the declining population in Pahokee, which averaged a household income of $30,753 between 2017 and 2021, lacks the financial resources other cities in Palm Beach County have, much less the doctors and medical facilities that see injured athletes on the sometimes monthslong road to recovery.
Baptist Hospital, or Bethesda, and Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, known as Memorial, are the Palm Beach County School District's contractors for athletic trainers. Those hospitals are expected to "provide one certified athletic trainer for services during the fall, winter and spring sports season," according to the district.
Back in July, in a conversation with the district regarding trainers, county Athletic Director Valerie Miyares said: "The district’s public high schools have been covered by athletic trainers during the FHSAA official sports seasons, either with a full-time athletic trainer assigned to the school, or by per diem athletic trainers who may cover for different periods of time until a full-time athletic trainer is hired. The athletic trainers are employees, or contractors, of the two hospital systems and are positioned by each hospital’s administrative teams."
The Post acquired the district's contracts with Bethesda and Memorial in August. Memorial is contracted to provide trainers for Dwyer, Glades Central, Jupiter, John I. Leonard, Palm Beach Central, Palm Beach Gardens, Palm Beach Lakes, Royal Palm Beach, Seminole Ridge and Suncoast, as well as Dreyfoos and Village Academy. In addition to Atlantic and Pahokee, Bethesda is contracted to provide trainers for Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Forest Hill, Lake Worth, Olympic Heights, Park Vista, Santaluces, Spanish River, Wellington and West Boca.
Sparrowhawk told The Post before last Friday's game in Williston that Pahokee still didn't have an athletic trainer at the season's end.
A shortage of athletic trainers "doesn't exist" according to the chairwoman of the Secondary School Athletic Trainers' Association — part of the National Athletic Trainers' Association, the professional membership association for certified athletic trainers and others in the career field — Jennifer D. Rheeling.
"What does exist is a shortage of athletic trainers willing to accept jobs with low pay, lack of respect as a medical professional, and unbalanced work-life dynamics," said Rheeling, who also serves as an athletic trainer at KIPP DC College Preparatory School in Washington, D.C.
"To be an athletic trainer in a school setting is to work nontraditional work hours: evenings, holidays, and weekends," Rheeling said.
"Athletic trainers in secondary schools are a necessity because they provide direct access to health care and risk mitigation, especially during times when other services are not available," Rheeling said. "Once the school nurse, counselors, social workers and administration leave at the end of the school day, athletic trainers are there to monitor, assess and respond to anything from a sprained ankle to a mental health crisis."
Rheeling called athletic trainers "extenders of public health" because they coordinate "appropriate" care and external resources, "minimizing the burden on emergency departments and eliminating unnecessary trips to their physician or a physical therapist."
In the preseason, Dr. Michael Milligan, the director of HSS Florida Primary Sports Medicine, was asked when athletic trainers should be made available to student-athletes.
"Just as a team is not sent out to practice or play without the appropriate coaching and equipment, the team should not be sent out without the appropriate athletic training and sports medicine physician support," Milligan said. "The availability of these resources is equally important to player health and safety."
"Athletic trainers and sports medicine physicians should be made available athletes and teams to take care of athletes and teams," Milligan said.
Where does Pahokee go from here?
Athletic trainer or not, Pahokee players are prepared to put their heads down and go to work again. Some on the varsity fields. Others, like Wilcher and Gilmore, a Kentucky commit, on the Division I scene.
"To continue to put in the work and whatever God has planned for me, I'm ready," Wilcher said. "From Pahokee, I'll always remember how hard it is growing up and that I want better for me and my family."
Leading up to his last game as a Blue Devil, Wilcher thrived for 886 yards on 110 touches, averaging 7.4 yards per carry for 10 touchdowns in four 100-plus-yard performances. He also caught five passes for 88 yards and a touchdown. On defense, he pinned 23 tackles, two hurries, five pass breakups and one forced fumble.
Once he makes it to Cullowhee, North Carolina, known to the mountain-nestled community as "the Whee," Wilcher will find familiar faces from Palm Beach County. The Catamounts' roster also hosts Atlantic graduates Corey Reddick Jr., a running back, as well as safeties Marquis Lymon and Jhamari Pierre-Louis.
"I'm just looking forward to balling out," Wilcher said.
Emilee Smarr is a sports reporter for The Palm Beach Post. She can be reached via email at esmarr@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Pahokee football thankful for brotherhood after struggles of 2023 season
