"If I could save one male I would have ac­com­plished some­thing. My work would not have gone in vain."

Shal­iza Has­sanali

Nevick De­noon has not on­ly been hailed as a foot­ball coach but a fa­ther fig­ure to dozens of boys in the Mor­vant com­mu­ni­ty which is plagued by ris­ing mur­ders, gang war­fare and gun vi­o­lence.

For al­most four decades, De­noon, 64, has trained a gen­er­a­tion of boys in his Mor­vant El­e­ments Foot­ball Club, vic­tims of pover­ty and hard­ship from bro­ken homes while oth­ers have dropped out of school.

De­noon has im­part­ed his coach­ing skills to play­ers such as Rus­sell Lat­apy, Den­nis Lawrence and Arnold Dwrai­ka who have carved a name for them­selves in the foot­ball are­na at home and abroad.

And he con­tin­ues to play a fa­ther­ly role in the lives of many of his play­ers even up to this day.

“A lot of play­ers who lack fa­thers or are fa­ther­less I try to reach out to them ... to at least be a fa­ther fig­ure to them. I keep telling them the wages of sin is death,” said De­noon, who has four chil­dren of his own.

“These chil­dren have no parental guid­ance and would some­times go down the wrong path. I try to en­cour­age them to do bet­ter and to work hard­er for what they want in life.”

Some have tak­en De­noon’s ad­vice, while oth­ers have not been so for­tu­nate.

“A few of them were gunned down in this very com­mu­ni­ty,” De­noon said. “It pains know­ing what Mor­vant was to what it has be­come ... a killing field.”

Last month, De­noon said he be­came a pil­lar of sup­port to one of his play­ers who was re­leased from the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca af­ter serv­ing a 15-year jail time for mur­der.

“This young man who lost his fa­ther at the age of 12 came to me for guid­ance and ad­vice af­ter com­ing out of prison. What can I do? I can­not turn my back on him. I have been try­ing to steer him in the right di­rec­tion ... to keep him out of trou­ble in the last few weeks. If I could save one male I would have ac­com­plished some­thing. My work would not have gone in vain.”

De­noon said he feels gut­ted know­ing that lit­tle was be­ing done to save this gen­er­a­tion of chil­dren who are caught up in a life of crime and gun vi­o­lence.

In the mean­time, he con­tin­ues to do his best.