Just need to clear some tabs.
Tyler Boyd stories worth reading. This one from a couple weeks back on being raised by his mother and coming out of Clairton. This one yesterday in the ESPN.com ACC blog talking about the aftermath of an electrical fire that gutted the house in which he had lived.
The family was homeless, and not long after, the house’s owner decided to tear it down instead of rebuilding. But the town’s youth football president quickly sought out Payne, offering an empty room in a building he owned only a few houses down from Payne’s previous home. The youth league’s vice president helped set up a bank account for donations, while local businesses in Clairton and up and down the Monongahela turned tip jars into donation buckets. Raffles were held. Rival high schools chipped in.
“We were truly blessed because in a month’s time it was like we never had the fire,” Payne said.
It all resonated with Boyd. When it came to committing to a college, Boyd felt a loyalty to the region. So when Tennessee and West Virginia made late pushes, Boyd was conflicted but never decommitted from Pitt.
“I felt with all that support, how can I leave?” Boyd said. “I can get help from a lot of people, and it’s not even from family or friends. It’s the people out there that respect us as a family and see what we’re doing and that it’s all positive. … If I went far, I don’t think people would have my back like in Pittsburgh.”
You what depresses me. As I read that, there was more than a small part of me trying to figure out if this sort of community support would run afoul of NCAA rules. And if it had happened in December 2012 rather than 2011, it very well might have. Or at least some people on a rival message board might claim it was.
