Algiers, America

Startin' in 15 seconds.

Let's go!

You know most of the people's story in this buildin' right now, right?

We have too much in this room

to be denied of our goal.

We got rings today, right?

But think about that.

Don't mean these people not still goin' through this.

Don't mean Kenny not still goin' home by his self.

It don't mean Jordan's not goin' home all happy.

Brandon still got questions.

Aaron goin' home, people gettin' killed two blocks away.

Fact, four blocks away.

Other night, people got killed right outside Trey house across the street.

Huh, Trey?

Man, let's do somethin' so special that nobody in America has ever done.

If we do something like that,

and we the first Black public school

to win five straight state championships in a row in America,

you know how many people we playin' for that's just not even in this room?

When you talk about the Karr Cougars,

you're talking about the most preeminent program

in the state of Louisiana.

When you look at what they've done over the past decade,

it's been remarkable.

In the championship game

for the tenth time in 11 years.

Going for a fifth consecutive state championship.

History could be made here tonight.

Brice Brown has done a great job

since taking over the Karr Cougar program,

not only on the field but off the field

with these kids in the community of Algiers,

and building these young players into men and preparing them for life.

Our aspiration was to build the best team in America.

And people kept saying that we couldn't.

We talkin' about a perennial powerhouse football team,

a team that is nationally recognized

and nationally ranked.

But, man, it's hard to think about that

when you bury a 17-year-old.

Do I love coachin' football? Yes.

But sometimes, the circumstances are so dark

that it doesn't allow you to fall in love with it.

The relentless pursuit of saving a child.

Easy to say that.

Harder to do.

And, hey, we're ready to kick off.

We are.

We are underway.

Brice Brown's team has won 26 consecutive games.

When you look at what they've done,

it's mind-boggling, isn't it?

No one had called them a dynasty yet.

Let us be the first.

Karr signed 12 seniors to college football scholarships last spring.

How big is this for the West Bank in New Orleans?

Man, this big for the city of New Orleans.

We are the first predominantly African-American school

to win four state championships in a row.

And we gon' be the only school to win five straight.

Algiers is on what we call the West Bank.

So, there's the Mississippi River bridge,

and there's the East Bank where the French Quarter is,

and there's the West Bank where Algiers is.

If you grew up on the West Bank,

you always feel like you're other,

especially if you're in Algiers.

We're isolated.

Not that we separate, but everybody separate us.

"Oh, if you from the West Bank, you not a New Orleanian."

We love Algiers. It's just a small community.

And it just so happened that some of the best players in the city

have come from Algiers.

We are the grimy, gritty, tough, physical, hungry, starving

muthafuckers you ever wanna meet.

Algiers was the, the middle class. Strongly, firmly middle class.

By the time I graduated high school,

things had started to change.

Some of that money had left the city.

The streets started to get worse. The schools started to get worse.

There'd been a lot more murders in Algiers,

a lot more break-ins in Algiers.

The violence started to go up.

Algiers, today, is heartbreaking.

It's in a crisis, really.

We have a murder rate that is out of control.

Algiers is, basically, a war every day.

It's either you gon' choose the right way or the wrong way.

One night, we just walkin', you know,

tryna have fun, do what we do.

I had wound up gettin' shot.

I ain't gonna lie, I thought I was about to die.

You see a lotta stuff goin' on.

If it's drug abuse, drug distribution, you know, people gettin' killed.

If somebody gets shot and killed in New Orleans, it's not like,

"Oh, my God, somebody got shot and killed!"

You know, it's not, it's not that reaction.

We've been trained to be so numb to it.

Like, it's normal. It is not normal.

Well, late last night, tragedy struck

in his hometown in New Orleans,

former wide receiver Tollette George

was shot to death in the Algiers neighborhood of the city.

New Orleans police say they are still investigating that incident,

which happened shortly before 10 P.M. last night.

You know, what happened with Tonka was

he graduated from Alcorn State University.

Two weeks later, he got shot and killed

two blocks down the street from his house.

And two weeks later, he was supposed to have a trial

with the New Orleans Saints.

That was the first time a player's funeral was held

at Edna Karr High School.

That experience was very numbing.

You know, I was very close to Tonka as a player.

He was a quarterback kid.

Tonka had been the best player

since he was five, six years old.

Freakish athlete.

I'm talkin' 'bout, it was natural to him.

He did things that you didn't have to teach.

You know, if he was around, he elevated everybody.

But without trying to do it.

He just had that, that "it" factor.

I don't care about the, uh, other ride, but you can tell me.

When we lost him, it really hit us hard as a staff.

And it not only changed our outlook

on how we started to protect our players

and check up on them, uh, more often,

it, it changed our message of our program.

Hey, hey, hey!

About that, it's not about wins and losses,

that it's about the safety, and the security,

and the maturation process of the kids that we have.

It reset us.

So, it changed the whole outlook of college football.

And then, we won four straight.

Can't get frustrated with yourself.

You keep worrying about what you doin' bad,

you gotta focus on the good stuff, too.

Losin' Tonka, that just switched everybody.

You didn't have to talk about that

to understand, like, we can't lose any more people.

Those four state championships we just won in a row,

and goin' to five in a row,

don't mean shit if anybody died from violence

any time we've been here.

That's been his sole mission,

and it's trickled down to all the rest of us.

We got 12 minutes. Let's go.

And I just feel like our job is we're catchin' them early.

We try to change their mind, and how to fuckin' survive,

and deal with this shit.

Consistently, you have to continuously work on yourself... every day.

If you know somethin' is pullin' you back,

how do you fight the thing that's pullin' you back?

I think these kids, that's all they see is people sayin'

that, "You can't do this, you can't do that.

"Black people, this is what they good at.

Killin' each other."

So, they start believin' this shit.

So, when you come to Edna Karr High School,

we doin' the exact opposite of what you see in Aurora.

We not tellin' our kids they can't do somethin'.

We tellin' our kids that they gon' do it,

and they're gonna be excellent at doin' it.

Look at the ring.

That-- This is last year ring.

This is the 2018 ring. Look at this shit.

And you see, look, on this one, "State Champs,"

"State Champions" is in diamond.

This one a special ring right here.

Yeah, that-- Look. That's how they looked at first.

I just can't-- I can't, I can't deal with it on my fingers. They're too big.

Now, one Sunday, I wore all of 'em to church and I never did that again.

Fuckin' people, fuckin'--

They weren't even lookin' at the preacher.