This story was written by Jack Shuler, producer, story writer and a professor at Denison University, and Doug Swift, director and videographer at Wild Fire Video.
Jojo Parker was a star football player for Portsmouth High School, in a region where sports prowess is highly valued. Many thought he had D1 potential, but he went to a regional college instead, and started taking drugs more than hitting the playbook. By the time he returned to Portsmouth, he was in active addiction, and it would take years before he found recovery and he also found a new way forward. On the east side of Portsmouth, the place where he once bought drugs, was an historic football stadium. Jojo began playing semi-pro football and, a few years later, he started his own team: the Portsmouth Stealth.
To be an “owner” of a semi-pro team means you do a lot of work for no pay. That doesn’t mean you do it for no reason. There’s love of the game, for sure. But in the case of the Stealth, there is so much more. Co-owner Emily Owens explains that no one in Portsmouth has escaped the addiction epidemic unscathed. As she stands next to the grave of a childhood friend who recently died of an overdose, she explains that even those who have never touched a drug have had a family member or friend who is addicted or who may have died. Michael Hobbs, offensive lineman, describes how his father was an addict, as he takes a break between reps in the gym. Then, as he begins to lift again, he says more to himself than anyone else, “I just don’t want to become like my father. I don’t want to.”
The Portsmouth Stealth is a community in a town where for decades, that was hard to find. It is a surrogate family for many people who have never been a part of one. It is a scrappy band of hope playing on a field where once an NFL team played, the Portsmouth Spartans, a team that played in the first NFL championship game ever, but a team that fled Portsmouth for the more profitable skyline of Detroit in 1934. But the Stealth are still there. Players shuffle work schedules, family crises, injuries, and, as Jojo says, the team will be around “’Til the wheels fall off.”
We are documenting their 2018 season, and in so doing trying to show the side of a community that is resourceful, dignified, and scrappy. No matter the odds.
Watch and share the trailer now:
https://vimeo.com/271477284
