Helping Hands

Brandon Tate didn’t listen to his brother’s arguments. He wouldn’t budge when his father tried to convince him. So, to finally make the gun-shy high school junior go out for the football team, Mama Tate had to step in with some tough love. On the morning of Cummings High School’s first practice, Lesley Tate put down this ultimatum to her youngest son: If you aren’t at practice when I get home from work, there’ll be trouble. More than two years later, Brandon Tate smiles at the story and wonders aloud where he would be if he hadn’t begrudgingly listened to his mother. (Burlington Times News)