If it had been up to Louise Nathan, her son Tony never would have touched a football.
Once he started playing, though, she never let him quit.
So, when Tony was in the 10th grade, and he came home one day and told his mother he had left the Woodlawn High School football team, she replied, in no uncertain terms, no, he had not.
"I've never known a Nathan to quit anything," she said. "And you're not going to be the first."
They got in the car, and she drove him back to the football field, where she told Woodlawn coach Tandy Gerelds to do whatever he needed to discipline her boy for skipping practice, just as long as he was allowed back on the team.