“When what should have been Gray’s freshman year of high school began, he wasn’t in school and he wasn’t on the field. Track season came around and he wasn’t there, either. No one knew what had happened. It was as if he’d vanished.
The mystery was solved one August day when another youth coach, Willie Lawrence, got a phone call. It was Gray, and he began to share where he’d been. His mother was a nurse working 16-hour shifts. There were seven others in the house, including two young siblings. Gray’s father wasn’t around and, well, Danny had been home taking care of the kids.