Please support our sponsor

USA Football ™
The Internet's Total Site for traditional American Football

MARYLAND

Free State's high school football site

USA Football ™ needs sports consultants for every state

USA Football ™ is searching for sports consultants in the State of Maryland. The duties of sports consultants range from serving as local sports reporters to providing marketing services in the Free State.

An affiliate, Sports In The USA, will be launching the nation's premier all-sports web site shortly that will include a section for collegiate and scholastic sports. This venture will provide our sports consultants with other opportunities. For additional information and to discuss an affiliation with USA Football ™, drop us a note to info@usafootball.com.

He is simply the Best from Bowie High School

By Christine Krapf
Sports Editor - Bowie Blade News

Regardless of the night and the intense summer heat that stifled air circulation in the weight room at Bowie High School, Lee Best came. Dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, he methodically did his regular lifting or spotted for a prospective varsity or junior varsity player. He talked about school, his studies, friends and football with them.
His work ethic and dedication impressed Bulldogs head coach Scott Chadwick. Best was the type of leader that a football program needed _ strong, knowledgeable and coachable.
But it is Bowie State University's football team that's the beneficiary of Best's abilities.
"It's good for us to have Lee around our program. He's an inspiration and a role model for our kids," said Chadwick, who took over Bowie High School football program two years after Best graduated. "He always tries to encourage our kids. They see that he's a Division II football player, but he's a down-to-earth person. Our kids respect him. They can look up to him."
Best has a big role on the Bowie State University football team. After spending two seasons watching and learning from the sidelines, he is starting this fall at linebacker.
"Lee's a leader on this team," Bowie State head football coach Henry Frazier said. "He's stepping up big for us. By being a staple of consistency, he puts people in their proper places on the field and can run the defense."
There is a phrase about good things coming to those who wait. Nothing could be more true for Best. He is the man responsible for calling most of the alignments and plays. This season, he is the team leader in tackles with 46 through five games.
"I had to wait my turn to play. We had three seniors {Alan Jones, Lorenzo Carter and Lorenzo Harrison) who were good linebackers," Best said. "God does things for a reason. I kept my head in the game. I did what I had to do. Playing with those guys sort of molded me for this situation."
Being a starting linebacker for for a nationally-recognized Division II program and juggling games and practice with his course work in the telecommunications field is just another in a series of challenges that Best, 20, has met over the past season. Unfortunately, his biggest fan is unable to see him play. Best lost his mother, Audrey, to cancer at the start of the 1998 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association season. And there is not a day that passes that he does not think about her.
Best lives in a section of Landover that provided Bowie High School with several outstanding athletes in the mid-1990s. Myron Dent is a neighbor across the street. He is a standout tailback for Division III Salisbury State University. Best was the starting fullback/linebacker and blocked for Dent when the two were at Bowie High School.
"I remember Lee. We played Bowie one year in the jamboree when I was at Central," Frazier. "He was a tough kid."
Calvin and Jermaine Arrington's home is around the corner. Calvin rushed for more than 1,000 yards his senior year at Louisville, and he now plays for the European Football League in Germany. Jermaine starts for the University of Maryland and is one of the fastest wide receivers in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
"If Jermaine gets drafted by an NFL team, I'll be thrilled for him," Best said, smiling. "I want to be in his house when ESPN shows up to film the phone call from the NFL franchise)."
Bowie High School athletic director Gary Wrenn, who was the school's head football coach when Best played, said that the Bests were special to his program for many reasons. Aside from Lee's play on the football field, his mother spent countless hours working to raise funds for the program.
"Audrey ran the concession stand when no one else would, and she would rally the parents for us," Wrenn said.
Best became especially close to one of Wrenn's assistants, Jae Jackson. The two came from similar backgrounds. Neither Jackson nor Best is a big guy (Best stands only 5-foot-9). Still, neither allowed his size to squelch his dream to play football.
Jackson also came from a single-parent home. His mother raised him alone after his fifth birthday.
"When Lee was playing for me, I can remember Mrs. Best calling and asking that she couldn't get Lee to do his homework, and could we talk to him," Wrenn said. "Then Jae would call him and tell him to get off playing Nintendo and do his work."
Jackson relished the chance to serve as Best's mentor. "If you look around and look at the statistics, there aren't a lot of African-American males mentoring to kids in this country," said Jackson, who works in the school's transition program. "Lee's one of my favorite kids. We built up a kind of kinship here, and we still see each other."
Bowie High School principal Patricia Brooks remembered introducing Best to her husband, Neil. The two immediately formed a nice friendship.
"Neil felt that Lee was someone who needed mentoring," Brooks said. "He thought Lee had so much potential, and his mom, what a wonderful woman she was. She was so supportive of our program. I can't say enough nice things about her and Lee."
Best deeply admired his mother. Aside from working a full-time job and volunteering to help the football program, she also went to school. She got her master's degree from Bowie State.
"I don't know how my mom did it. She was mother and father for me," he said. "And she raised me right."
Several colleges and universities expressed interest in Best following his senior season at Bowie High School. He narrowed his choices to Bowie State and Shepherd College in West Virginia. He knew that he wanted to pursue a career in telecommunications, and Bowie State had an outstanding program.
His mother, Best said, did not care where he went to school. She just wanted him there.
"It was mandatory that when I went to college, I got a degree," Best said. "I think she just wanted me to be happy."
Because Bowie State's roster included several outstanding upperclassmen who played linebacker, Best saw limited playing time his first two seasons. Sitting and watching were tough adjustments for Best, who played all four seasons at Bowie High School.
"It was hard at first," he said, "but Mom told me to wait my turn."
But Best's world changed dramatically just days before Bowie State's 1998 season opener against Cheyney University (Pa.). Audrey Best lost her battle with cancer, and for the first time in his life, Best understood the meaning of being alone.
"It's a big responsibility being an adult," said Best, who last year joined many of Bowie State's athletes in donating platelets, which were given to transfuse cancer, bone marrow transplant and leukemia patients. "I go to the grocery store to buy food and say, `Can I cook this? After football season, I'll go find a job."
A nine-hour bus ride following Bowie State's 23-19 win over Johnson C. Smith in Charlotte, N.C. earlier this season got Best thinking. Most of the Bulldogs and coaches fell asleep for the nine-hour, rainy bus trip from Charlotte, N.C. to the Bowie State campus. Best, however, just could not get comfortable. "I kept thinking that all the other guys could go home and sleep all day," Best said. "I had to go home and pay the bills."
When Chadwick took over the Bowie High School football program in April 1998, he did not know if any of the former players would be interested in their alma mater.
Then, there was Best.
"Lee was one of the first people I met when I came here," Chadwick said. "He volunteered to help with our youth football camp. He's always willing to do anything we ask of him."
Chadwick and his players gave Best a reason to boast that he is a graduate of Bowie High School with the varsity football program's impressive start this fall.
"I've got a reason to brag," he said with a smile.
Frazier likes Best's devotion to his alma mater's football program. "That's a sign of good parenting," Frazier added. "Helping out, that's what it's all about. You've got to give back."
The players also have been supportive of Best, especially when he lost his mother. Many attended the viewings and funeral services.
Now, when Bowie High School's off day is Bowie State's game day, players, coaches and even some former coaches go to watch Best call the defensive signals.
"He has my name on the (pass) list," said Jackson, who went to three of Bowie State's games last season.
The mutual affection that Best and the Bowie High School community share for each other does not surprise Brooks. "Lee will continue to make contributions in his community," Brooks said. "He's just that kind of an individual. He values hard work. He has a great deal of integrity. He chooses not be be victimized by his circumstances, and that's why he will be a role model for others."
In other words, he is simply the Best.