“Karen Armstrong, a teacher and guidance counselor for 30 years in Columbus Public Schools, came into LeVon Morefield’s life at exactly the right time. Armstrong, a white single mother, became Morefield’s guardian when he was 17 – just a year removed from his struggles with street life.”
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Karen Armstrong, a teacher and guidance counselor for 30 years in Columbus Public Schools, came into LeVon Morefield’s life at exactly the right time.

Armstrong, a white single mother, became Morefield’s guardian when he was 17 – just a year removed from his struggles with street life.

At first, they bumped heads.

She never really understood the football side, Morefield said. She was more on just academics. She has a daughter, she never had a son, and she’s single.

When I moved in with her she wanted me to stop playing. I told her I’m not a quitter, I’m never going to quit. She said, ‘Quit what? You only practice’ and that was kind of hurtful.

Morefield said football was the one thing that kept him out of trouble and off the streets.

She never made him quit and supported his decision to play football.

That support helped take Morefield to places he had never been before.

She has meant the world to me, Morefield said. Every time I tell her how much she means to me she says, ‘I helped you out, but you had to be willing to change.’

There were more people before her, but she was the final one. Everyone before her couldn’t get me to where she has gotten me.

Morefield said Armstrong was the one who got him prepared for college and the one who was on him about the ACTs.

She was the one that got me over hump, Morefield said. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here.

Morefield said if it wasn’t for Armtstrong, he would have probably been working and attending community college.

Morefield credited Armstrong with getting him over the hump, but Donnell and Shelley Thomas were also big influences on his life.

Morefield lived with the Thomas family before Armstrong took him in.

They are just as important as she (Armstrong) is because if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be with her (Armstrong), Morefield said.

Before the Thomas family, Morefield was still living with his aunt and still selling drugs.

He said his aunt did what she could, but it just wasn’t a good fit.

I had structure when I went into their (the Thomas’s) home, Morefield said. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.

If I would have never left my aunt’s house and went to the Thomas’s house, I would have never been able to transition into Karen’s (Armstrong) house.

Morefield said living in the Thomas household helped him make an easier transition to living with Armstrong.

Morefield said his stepfather John Gully, who raised him and his brother until Morefield was 10, also played an important role. They were not allowed to stay with him because he was not a blood relative.

During the football team’s senior night at Brookhaven High School, Morefield walked out onto the field accompanied by Gully and Armstrong.

Morefield said the photo taken that night of the three of them is a special image to him because it shows the progress he has made from the beginning stages of his life until now.

That picture represents John Gully to the left, who instilled a lot of things in me in the beginning of my life, me in the middle represents all the people in the middle [of my life] that helped out and Karen [Armstrong] on the right represents the person who finished, Morefield said.

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