Sure, it was tough. Life there, in Yonkers, always is. But there are things that must be understood; things about the people and their makeup and when one gets out clean, about him and how he did it.

Jimmy Kennedy -- one of the good kids, says Joe Paterno -- made it out. Some say he was close to getting sucked in. Kennedy himself has said that he could have ended up selling drugs. Others don't believe it. His mother, for one.

"He doesn't have it in him," Mary Darby says. "It's all around here, yeah. Kids are surrounded by it. But not Wayne. No, not Wayne."

Kennedy's family calls him by his middle name. "We've always called him Wayne," Darby says. "We hear people call him Jimmy and it doesn't sound right. He's Wayne to us."

Family is a funny thing. There are those who would say that convention is key. Two parents, two kids, a dog, a lawn, a fence and a Toyota or Ford or Chevy in the garage. Those kids are going to make it. Any other living situation and you can use the key words "rough childhood" and that explains it all, right?

Well, here's Jimmy Kennedy at age seven, getting his two brothers ready for their baths. Then he gets them into their pajamas and ready for supper, which Mary has been cooking since she got home from work, usually after putting in overtime.

"Wayne was always more of a father figure than a brother," Darby says. "There was no father around, so he needed to do some of those things."

It actually started when Kennedy was four years old, the squeaky voice saying: "Ma, you sure you okay? You sure you don't need anything?"

It continued until the ninth grade, when Kennedy was cut from the football team. That dream seemingly over, he looked for a way to help his mother support the family.

But when you look around in Yonkers, you only see the easy ways out. Not easy, exactly; more like quick. You get a few grams of cocaine, a few pounds of pot and you can make enough money for your mother to put food on the table for weeks.

But there are the sirens. They never stop. Not when you are sitting on the corner, waiting to make a deal. Not when you are in your home eating supper. You are always dealing with them. They do not stop, not in Yonkers. And for Kennedy, contending with that was not an option.

"To tell you the truth," Curtis said, "I've thought about it a lot. People, they have a good and a bad side, you know? And it's all a balance of where you are and what you choose.

"Me, I'm not going to lie to you about it. Sometimes, I lean to the bad side. I think most people do. Wayne, he never has. He's an angel."

Mary Darby: "I never thought I'd hear him called an angel. But it's not off. Not for Wayne. It's tough to know him, to understand him. He doesn't let it out much. He's a crazy guy, he'll make you laugh. I'm sure all the press loves talking to him. But he doesn't really let you inside; it's not easy to know Wayne, really."

Know this, at least: when Jimmy Wayne Kennedy goes back to his neighborhood, all the eyes shift. Those young kids, looking for anything to get ahead, swivel their heads from the drug corners to the big man walking down the street in a Penn State football shirt.

His mother tells the story.

"I come out of work one day, and Wayne is waiting over in his truck," she says. "There's a kid, about 17 or 18 standing there, just staring at him. I say 'What you looking at?' And the kid goes, real quietly, 'Is that Jimmy Kennedy?' 'Yeah,' I say, 'Go talk to him. He ain't tough. He's a sweetheart, a pussycat.' "

So the kid goes over to Kennedy's truck. But Kennedy wants to get his mother home, so he tells the boy to either ride with or wait there. The kid waits, and Kennedy drops off his mom and comes back later.

Mary Darby learned a long time ago not to question what her son has to say or what he has learned.

"God has led him here and He tells Wayne what he needs to know," she says, "so that Wayne can pass it along."

A few weeks after her son had returned to school, Mary Darby saw the young man on the street.

"Your son is a great human being," he told her. "I have to get through school now. I have to go to college. I have to do something with my life. And I'm not going to do it for anyone else; I'm going to do it for myself. I'm going to do it so people know I can."

Kennedy does it so his family knows he can.

"I couldn't imagine myself without my family," he said. "I'd do anything for them."

So when Kennedy looks around and sees Joe Paterno dealing with the recent death of his brother, George, it hits him especially hard. Even worse is watching assistant head coach Fran Ganter try to move on after the recent death of his wife, and teammate Chris Ganter go on without his mother.

"If that was my mother," Kennedy says, "I'd be done. I don't know how I'd go on. If I lost my brother, I'd take at least a year off. It would be impossible for me."

When Kennedy talks about his closest teammates, he calls them family. Guys like Deryck Toles and Anthony Adams.

And of course, there's Rashana Barnes, a former Penn State basketball player, to whom Kennedy got engaged around Valentine's Day 2000.

The first time the two met was the only time Barnes has ever seen Kennedy act insincere or immature.

"He tried to use some line and hand me his number," she says, laughing. "I thought he was a big-headed football player. Typical."

But Jimmy got her. Persistence is another one of his qualities. The way he sees it, the only thing he needs to be given is a chance.

His mother has her own theory: "When man says no, God says yes. When God opens a door, man can't close it no more."

Something made Barnes give Kennedy a chance.

"He just started hanging around me all the time," Barnes says. "I couldn't get him away. But I started to see that he was mature and he had a handle on things. He's very caring. He has a protector quality about him. I just liked what he was all about."

Kennedy, who recently criticized some members of last year's team for their Thursday-night drinking penchant, does not drink. Take New Year's Eve, for example, when everyone is out partying.

"One of the boys will say, "Hey, I got a big bottle of Seagram's' and they'll hold up a big bottle of gin," Mary Darby says. "Then, Wayne says, 'Hey, I got the same thing' and everybody is amazed because they never seen him drink. But he just pulls out a big two-liter of Seagram's ginger ale. He'll sit there and sip that all night."

Kennedy has never had time to fit things like that in his life. It's simply in his makeup that he would want to settle down and be responsible. Which is why he spent his college years with Rashana, not at a bar.

"She's the woman of my dreams," Kennedy says. "I can't wait to get married to her. I can't wait to have her in my family. She's helped me to stay focused on everything. She's been so important to my life."

It is a life that seems to be approaching a door that leads to fulfillment. Not just in football. Kennedy would rather be a loving father someday. He'd rather help inner-city kids. He'd rather, in his quiet way, convince a kid that school is the right path.

And as Jimmy Kennedy puts his hand on the knob and turns, he knows that no one will ever close his door.