March 19, 2025 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Melvin Cole, the headmaster of PURE Youth Athletics Alliance in Memphis, tells his astonishing story of going from running cocaine rings to running a boarding school dedicated to helping kids who grew up just like he did.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Melvin Cole is the headmaster at Pure Youth Athletics Alliance
in Memphis, Tennessee, one of America's few remaining boarding schools.
He's a man on a mission to save kids who
(00:30):
grew up just like him from becoming products of their
dysfunctional environments and neighborhoods.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Let's get into this story. Take it away, Melvine.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I was born in kinda South Memphis projects in that area,
and that's really where I got my true perception of life.
And like I tell people out the time, when you
growing up in that type of environment where your grandma
was a ham or an addice and are your uncle
or drug dealers, well then that shapes all of.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Your morals, beliefs, and values. I mean, because you only
know what you know.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Everything is a learn and taught behavior besides self preservation,
Like nobody teaches a baby how to cry, but all
these other things are learned, so survival skills are put
in us. And my idea was to be the best
drug dealer in the world, and that was surely shape
offering my environment because I didn't have bad parents. It
(01:31):
was more so what I found to be cool, and
the cars, the money, and the women, and that so
the quickest way and the best way to get it
was a high level drug dealer. I hated my father
because I didn't understand. My father had three kids, and
two of them died. The first one his first baby.
(01:55):
Mama put his kid next to a wonder in Boston
and she ain't up catching now mom and dying. And
then my second my sister that died when I was
two and she was four.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Her appendix exploded in the bed with my mom.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
So my dad grew this resentment for me out of
wanting his daughters, and then he turned to the liquor bottle.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
And his mom was the hairin attic.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So from there with the depressions of his daughters, his
mom and everything, so that's what he turned to, which
allowed our relationship to kind of go distant ways and
then just kind of allow that resentment to build in
from him to me and me to him. And I
kind of remember one night he asked us, man, why
(02:42):
God didn't take you instead of the girls.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
And I looked at him, I said, I don't know.
Once you dying, ask him.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
So those are the things that kind of just was
created by circumstances and environment. Now I look back and
I don't know what I would do if so happened
to my kids. I mean, so I understand that now
if I'm sitting at his age. But you know, and
with my mom, So my mom had a life full
(03:09):
of trauma.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
She left home when she was sixteen.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Years old, worked three jobs with my brother, and so
losing her only daughter in the bed whate I mean,
so that just kind of sent her in total depression.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
So that allowed me.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
To kind of see and hear and be around things
that you're not supposed to be. But from being with
my grandma's my uncle's was the biggest influence.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
And those was the ones that was the drug de
little that was.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Involved in the games, and I was the ones that
I was describing to be, Like, I didn't get a
chance to play football until my seventh grade year because
Jones introduced me.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
He was everything.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
So you know, I grew up wanted to play little
football and you know, watching everybody crowd around on TV
on Saturdays and Sundays, and I wanted to be celebrated.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
So that's when I came up.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
When I was ten, I said, I'm gonna either be
the best football player to ever put on pads, 'm
gonna be the best drug dealer in the world. So
once I made it to middle school, football was offer
after school, so I didn't need any transportation. I didn't
need any money or anything like that. It was just
right there, right after school. And I never remember the
(04:31):
first day we was running and he looked at me
and said, boy, you run like a jack rabbit, and
I said, well, thank you. So we got ready and
we put on pads, and I remember this guy get
through the ball and I en't up batting it down
because one of the kids was gonna tackle me.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
And he started to.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yell at me and going on and on, and I
had no idea what he was talking about. And the
next day he saw me in the hallway he said, son,
you'll stood. You should always walk like a stud, talk
like a stud, and be a stud at all time.
No matter what, You're gonna be great. And I held
onto those words. You know, it was just one of
(05:11):
them things like yeah, I am. He was killed in
a car accident, so then that's what it just kind
of I kind of spired out of control even more.
I mean, that was the only guy who's ever pumped
any type of positivity, and so losing him was hard.
And that's ultimately how I end up turning into being
(05:32):
in the gangs and drug dealing. And my teens was
totally different, just because I was a father. At the
age of fourteen, I was kicked out the eighth grade,
and a lot of my friends was already either older
and in the gang or my age, and we were
selecting what game who was.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Gonna be in.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
So in my neighborhood, it wasn't a matter of if
he was gonna be in a gang, it was more
like what game.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
When my child we got pregnant.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
You know, my dad really didn't have any advice for me,
and so I was able to lean on the guys
in the gang and they gave me my first counsel
weed to be able to take care of my child
mom as she was going through a pregnancy. So me, ultimately,
I stepped up to the plate. To the rest been
history ever since.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
And you're listening to Melvin Cole, who's the headmaster at
Pure Youth Athletics Alliance in Memphis, Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Born in South Memphis.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
His family members were well drug users, drug sellers, traumatic deaths.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
His father lost two of his.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Kids and said to his son at one point, why
didn't God take you and not the girls? I imagine
hearing something like that, and of course Melvin fired back,
why don't you die and go ask him? His mother
had all kinds of trauma herself, and by the time
he was sixteen, the only people he could look up to.
His uncles were in games and we're drug dealers. At
(07:02):
the age of ten, he knew we might have had
a skill in football and said, I'll either be the
best football player or the best drug dealer, one of
the two in my neighborhood. He said, it wasn't a
matter of if you joined a gang, but which gang.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
When we come.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Back, more of the story of Melvin Cole Here on
Our American Stories. Leehbib Here, host of Our American Stories.
Every day on this show, we bring you stories of America,
stories of us, and it's because of listeners like you
that were able to tell the story of this great
(07:39):
and beautiful country every day. Our stories will always be
free to listen to, but they're not free to make
If you love what you hear, consider making a tax
deductible donation to our American Stories. Is it our American
stories dot Com to give, give a little, give a lot,
any amount helps, but to our American Stories dot Com.
(08:09):
And we returned to our American Stories and with Melvin
Cole's story. When we last left off, Melvin had decided
that he was either going to be the best drug
dealer in the world or the best football player in
the world. After the tragic death of his football coach,
he chose the latter. In short order, he was kicked
out of middle school and became a father at the
(08:31):
age of fourteen.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Let's return to the story.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
So you know, I didn't play fortball my ninth grade
year at all. I got kicked out of school my
eighth grade year, coach Jones dying the year before, having
my child on the way, I just figured it's time
for me to step up and be a man. And
one of the local high school coaches who recruited me
from middle school convinced you.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Know me heard I was going down the own road.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
To Ultimately, he end up kind of ushering me to
Briar Crest where he felt like if I got out
that environment that I was in.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
He could changed my life. Brian Christ.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
It's predominantly white, all white, yeah, I mean rich kids.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
At the time, Hugh Freeze was the star.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Head football coach, and it was one of those things
that it was good, but it was bad. It was
one of that if you're not prepped to be in
that environment, if you're not if you don't understand.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
That environment, it does more harm than good.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Coming over to Briar Christ, they had went to the
state championship, but they never wanted My senior year, we
end up went in the state championship first time in
school history.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
You know what I mean. Everybody's riding high with Ryan Fly.
I had already.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Signed my football scholarship Division one to Bowling Green State University.
So to go through that that process and helped the
school get their first state championship in history, and to
be kicked out over what bridcers like they call pre
marital sex, that was a hard peal.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
For me to swallow.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Black guys don't have sex with white women. Probably now
everybody's cool with it. Mois that we're talking about twenty
years ago. Yeah, I mean twenty years ago. Memphis Tennessee.
Is is really not the best thing you do as
a young man. From the it really changed how I
(10:38):
saw relationships.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
I lost all the ability to trust in relationship. So
the thing with me going off to college is my mom.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
She ended up begging one of the local principles at
white Haven why I got kicked out my ninth grade year,
and I was able to kind of get in there
and finished up to be able to go off to college.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
But it was one of those things where I still
needed money.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
The need for money for myself, the need for money
for my daughter. It never changed. So now it just
turned into okay, how do you do both? So ultimately
I suffered a kidney injury on the field, which when
I really wanted to press and just kind of start
to question if I was ever gonna get back on
(11:31):
the field, if I was ever gonna have a chance
to play, if I was ever gonna try to go
to the draft. So then from there I just started
to get deeper and deeper into the drug business.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
And from there I was in a drug deal that.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Went wrong in Chicago or Illinois, where I took two shots,
one to the head and one to the back, which
ended my football career. And that's when I just I
came over with this phrase, hell or sale. I was
gonna put the game down so hard that somebody was
gonna have to kid me or I was gonna get
life in prison. And that was my goal. I was
(12:08):
never gonna stop. What I mean, that was my life.
This I was this in my mind, this is what
I was destined to be.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
This I was.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
That's what I was made for, you know what I mean,
because I looked at it as you say out the time.
If God didn't want me to be a drug dealer,
he wouldn't have put me around drugs and drug dealers.
I got the ultimate reward, sentenced to sixty eight months
in prison with an opportunity of parole after two and
a half years. And it was just prison was hard.
(12:37):
Prison was hard from a lot of different areas, adjusting
to how other people lived. So I had already, of course,
with me running a cocaine ring out in northwest Ohio
in seven cities. I was accustomed to doing things my.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Own way and living my own way.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
So now to be restricted and defined controlled, I mean,
it played on me mentally. Then it's the other side
of prison that you don't hear with men walking around
acting like women wearing kool aid, and I mean guys
getting raped and Peter Beach and me personally, I don't
(13:18):
believe any man is ready to see that.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Witnessing that was.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Life changing, because that's that's the stuff that nobody talks about.
That's the stuff that it's not in a rap song.
That's the stuff that's not in the movies. So for
me to witness a boy screaming like a woman, a
boy having blood skiing everywhere, was crazy, Like that's you're
(13:48):
not prepared to see that. I mean, because there's still
some human and everybody that's inside of it. And then
when you got to look at it in the reality,
only person that you can turn on is God. That's
what it comes down to. It's not about how tough
you are. It's not about if you're gay or not.
It's not it's not about if you're cool or not.
(14:09):
It's not about where you're from. It's literally who gets
picked that day. I mean, you know, you got a
guy that finds out his girlfriend she no, they go
over a fight that could you could cost that God
could cost his life.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
You could cost your life. I mean there's there's so
many different variables. So when you sit down and you really.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Take everything off the table, take all the ego off
the tape, you realize it's only God. That's why you
have so many people converting to God while they're in prison,
because they look at it like that's only That's the
only person that can stop you from being.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
On the menu that day. And that's what ultimately changed
my life.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Witness in a brutal riping just because I want in
my cell and I told God, I said, God, that
cannot happen to me, period because if it do, I'm
killing all of them and then and I'm killing myself.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
I said, There's no way that can happen to me.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
So it was a lot of different emotional and a
lot of different things that I was prepared for, but
it was so many things mentally that I wasn't prepared
for going in. I was prepared physically, but not mentally
for the toll it was going to take on on
your mind. When the rest of my bid I was,
(15:25):
I was, I was focused, but I still had this
stinky thinking, you know what I mean. I still had
an ideal of when I got out, I was gonna
move to Central America, and I was going to import
narcotics to the United States. So the whole thing I
was chasing Craig Pettis and Barbico, I was chasing all them.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
I was chasing my family.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
I wanted to I wanted to be higher up in
the food chain. I want I want to be the
best that ever did it. I still had that that vision,
that ech. But then my uncle died while I was
in prison. That killed a deal that I have been
working on. And you know, it was one of them
(16:09):
things that God literally removed everybody that can help me
do wrong. And so from there it's when I started.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
To kind of dissect my life.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
And I said, when I get out, I'm gonna start
a Little League team. That's the first thing I'm gonna do.
I said, I'm gonna get kids what I didn't have.
And I said, if I can do a little League team,
I can. I can preserve the innocence, because see, that's
what people don't understand and the hood, that's what get
takes right away. It's all about survival. And I wanted
(16:44):
those kids innocence. I wanted them where we could they
could just run around and be free and they can
play ball. Ain't nobody worried about no no, no food,
no stipends, no how we gonna get here? And that's
what got me through my time. Com meet me with gods.
When I get out of here, I'm gonna com meet
the rest of my life to saving young man that
(17:05):
looked like me.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
And you're listening to Melvin Cole tell one heck of
a story. He rose to local prominence at Briercrest Powerhouse
of a sport program in Memphis, and in college, he
still needed money for himself and his kid. He just
got deeper and deeper into the drug trade, shot twice
in the head doing a deal or a deal that
went south. The next thing you know, he's in prison
(17:29):
for sixty eight months. He saw things he never should
have seen in prison, and the only thing that saved him,
he said, is God. He said, God removed everyone in
my life that I could do wrong with. My dream
went from being a drug dealer to saving young men that.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Looked like me.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
When we come back, we'll find out how Melvin Cole
did just that, did just that here on our American stories.
(18:08):
And we returned to our American stories and the final
portion of Melvin Cole's story. When we last left off,
Melvin had found himself in prison and had come out
of a changed man. His biggest desire to form a
little league team and help prevent kids from ending up
in jail like he did, would soon turned into a
boarding school called Pure.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Let's get back to the story.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
He started off as a little league team, and just
like every other inner city little league coach, you're dropping
off kids that no electricity, no parents, no food. You mean,
knowing the environment, sleeping on a porch in the Foothomes project.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
With me directly being a part of it, I understood
what was gonna take place night with those kids.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
So I looked up.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
At me and my fiance was sharing a two bedroom
downtown apartment with about fifteen young men, just because.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
That's how many kids. I knew.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
It was all about the environment. I kept saying it,
it's the environment. It was the environment. I kept telling
people about myself. It was the environment.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
And so I had.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Came up with this idea, just kind of based off
of my life. I said, well, what if I sent
them to a private school, but they lived with me
and I could mirror what was going on at the school,
and they can come home and we can have those
conversations and do those things. Because the thing about it
(19:41):
is being a high level drug dealer. It exposed me
to a lot, a lot of people, a lot of knowledge,
a lot of wealth. So I had a lot to share,
I had a lot to give. I had a lot
to give. So we had came up with the idea.
So the private school wanted them to take interesting exam
to get in. Well, then all the boys schooled in
(20:04):
a zero percentile and reading, writing, and math, and this
is nothing I never forget. I looked at the guy,
said what does that mean? He said that means a
can't come here, and he said it in such a
disgusting way that automatically reverted me back to my bride
(20:25):
Christ days where we wasn't good enough, or we.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Was out of place, or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
So I decided to close down my full profit gym
and turn it into a school for the boys. So
I reached out to their parents and I said, I
want to remove them from the school. I said, I'm
gonna get some volunteers and a little small staff, and this.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Is what I want to do. I want to move
the needle. I know what they need. I'm them.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
So the first year we got three point seventh grade
level jump. The next year we got a three point.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
One grade level jump.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
And then that's when I started saying, hey, let's put
them against the act to kind of really see where
they are. Want. Some of our kids got a positive
twenty twenty one, and I want't screaming like, hey it works.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
It's all about the environment. I said. No kid is bad,
no person is bad. They adapt to the environment. That's
all of it is.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
These kids and people, they'll adapt to whatever.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
They're gonna adapt to the environment.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
If I come into a environment where everybody wears nice
shiny suits, guess what overtime I start wearing nice shiny suits.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
You know what I mean. If I come in and
guys are.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Shooting dice and smoking crack, guess what over time I'm
an shoot dice and smoke crack.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
The environment is the environment. I mean they call it
the trap for a reason. I mean, because there's so
many different things that can trap you and make you
stay inside of her. So pure stands for progressing under
restraints and extremes and That's what I believe the young
men in Memphis, and ultimately a lot of the young
(22:13):
men that liveing in inner city of the United States.
I mean, they gotta progress no matter what. So when
you start talking about what you mean under extremes and restraints, well,
our kids in living in double the national average of property.
Our kids are living in double the national average or
food hardship. So that means our kids aren't getting the
(22:35):
bare necessities. Right now, Memphis, Tennessee, we got thirty five
percent of our kids living two hundred percent below property level.
But you still got to progress. You can't make excuses.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
For what neighborhood with zip code. You can't make excuses,
who your mama is.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Who your daddy is, You can't make any excuses. You
still gotta get it done. I mean, that's why I
tell people all the time. Instead of crying about the hand,
you would the figure out how to play it, because you.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Still got played. You can't throw the cards here.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
That was the whole basis of perod That was the
whole basis of my life. And that's what we teach
the boys dep At six point thirty. We start the
day with meditation, then they work out. When they get
done working out, they got shower and breakfast, They go
to school for three hours, then they take a lunch,
(23:29):
then they do another.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Three hours of school.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
But the latter three hours are all based off of
agriculture and technology. Also, we have our education enrichment where
if you didn't whatever you didn't get in class, you
can get it in the in the evening time when
we have our tutors come in or we got kids
that really can get pushed to head, we utilize that
(23:51):
as well. And then so the light they get from
nine thirty to ten thirty, they get free time to
hang out, talk on the phone, video, play music, chess,
whatever they want to do. Lights out, ten thirty start
all over again. So right now we're running at an
eighty six percent matriculation rate of young men going to college.
(24:15):
Right now, we got over twenty five first generational college
students sitting in the classroom. Our first college graduate graduates
this spring, Tevin Carter from Tennessee State University.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
So we excited. Character is everything. Characters say your life.
Character keep you alive.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
So I've always been I've always been big on myself
having a high character and our boys because maybe your
bank account look funny today, Maybe your clothes look funny today.
Maybe you didn't get a haircut, maybe you miss a shower.
But your character, you can always control your character. That
(24:57):
has nothing to do with anybody else. It's all about
out you. How you see you, how your characters show up.
That's the true reflection of how you see you. A
lot of kids say out the time, dang coach, I
never thought about it like that. I said, I know,
that's what that's why I'm here. Then they started to
(25:17):
get it because see I'm talking in their language, like
one of the biggest things in our school. We got
these big mirrors and every day I'll tell the bulls,
look at yourself.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
What you hire you, would you marry you?
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Won't you be scared of you? You look like you're
gonna rob me. So if you look like you're gonna
rob me, I'm gonna treat you like you're gonna rob me.
All perceptions of violence two things can be true. And
when you gotta teacher how boys that, No, you gotta
be conscious of how you look. That's the reality of it.
You will be judged by how you look. If you
(25:52):
look like you're gonna rob me, I'm gonna treat you,
and I'm black.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
No what I tell them?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I'm black?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Then I put it? Did I put it on them?
I say, what you think when you see a little
homie with a ski mass on?
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Ah? Yeah, coach, he's trying to slim me. All right? Then,
so you get it.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
So you get it all right? Now both of us
just agree we get it. Now let me show you
how we change it. Because see that's what people don't understand. Yeah,
you can tell me all day long, but until you
show me till you walk me through it, then that's
a horse of a different color. So now you got
to start with the understanding because I always flipped it
back on them.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
Now let's do something about it. See we can fix that.
We allow you to make you know what I mean,
you can make four five mistakes here. It ain't one
and done.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
So it is.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
This is the biggest thing where I tell our staff,
our coaches, I say, kids don't care what you know
until they know that you care. And that's the first
thing is man, you gotta let them know, like, hey,
there's nothing difference.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Between me and you besides clothes and gray hair.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
And thanks to Melvin Cole, the headmaster at Pure Youth
Athletics Alliance in Memphis, Tennessee. And what a story he
told here. And I love those questions he asked those
young men, Would you hire you? Would you marry you?
So many people doing work like this across the country.
(27:20):
We celebrate it. Melvin Cole, his story here on our
American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Melvin Cole is the headmaster at Pure Youth Athletics Alliance
in Memphis, Tennessee, one of America's few remaining boarding schools.
He's a man on a mission to save kids who
(00:30):
grew up just like him from becoming products of their
dysfunctional environments and neighborhoods.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Let's get into this story. Take it away, Melvine.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I was born in kinda South Memphis projects in that area,
and that's really where I got my true perception of life.
And like I tell people out the time, when you
growing up in that type of environment where your grandma
was a ham or an addice and are your uncle
or drug dealers, well then that shapes all of.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Your morals, beliefs, and values. I mean, because you only
know what you know.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Everything is a learn and taught behavior besides self preservation,
Like nobody teaches a baby how to cry, but all
these other things are learned, so survival skills are put
in us. And my idea was to be the best
drug dealer in the world, and that was surely shape
offering my environment because I didn't have bad parents. It
(01:31):
was more so what I found to be cool, and
the cars, the money, and the women, and that so
the quickest way and the best way to get it
was a high level drug dealer. I hated my father
because I didn't understand. My father had three kids, and
two of them died. The first one his first baby.
(01:55):
Mama put his kid next to a wonder in Boston
and she ain't up catching now mom and dying. And
then my second my sister that died when I was
two and she was four.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Her appendix exploded in the bed with my mom.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
So my dad grew this resentment for me out of
wanting his daughters, and then he turned to the liquor bottle.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
And his mom was the hairin attic.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So from there with the depressions of his daughters, his
mom and everything, so that's what he turned to, which
allowed our relationship to kind of go distant ways and
then just kind of allow that resentment to build in
from him to me and me to him. And I
kind of remember one night he asked us, man, why
(02:42):
God didn't take you instead of the girls.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
And I looked at him, I said, I don't know.
Once you dying, ask him.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
So those are the things that kind of just was
created by circumstances and environment. Now I look back and
I don't know what I would do if so happened
to my kids. I mean, so I understand that now
if I'm sitting at his age. But you know, and
with my mom, So my mom had a life full
(03:09):
of trauma.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
She left home when she was sixteen.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Years old, worked three jobs with my brother, and so
losing her only daughter in the bed whate I mean,
so that just kind of sent her in total depression.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
So that allowed me.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
To kind of see and hear and be around things
that you're not supposed to be. But from being with
my grandma's my uncle's was the biggest influence.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
And those was the ones that was the drug de
little that was.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Involved in the games, and I was the ones that
I was describing to be, Like, I didn't get a
chance to play football until my seventh grade year because
Jones introduced me.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
He was everything.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
So you know, I grew up wanted to play little
football and you know, watching everybody crowd around on TV
on Saturdays and Sundays, and I wanted to be celebrated.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
So that's when I came up.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
When I was ten, I said, I'm gonna either be
the best football player to ever put on pads, 'm
gonna be the best drug dealer in the world. So
once I made it to middle school, football was offer
after school, so I didn't need any transportation. I didn't
need any money or anything like that. It was just
right there, right after school. And I never remember the
(04:31):
first day we was running and he looked at me
and said, boy, you run like a jack rabbit, and
I said, well, thank you. So we got ready and
we put on pads, and I remember this guy get
through the ball and I en't up batting it down
because one of the kids was gonna tackle me.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
And he started to.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yell at me and going on and on, and I
had no idea what he was talking about. And the
next day he saw me in the hallway he said, son,
you'll stood. You should always walk like a stud, talk
like a stud, and be a stud at all time.
No matter what, You're gonna be great. And I held
onto those words. You know, it was just one of
(05:11):
them things like yeah, I am. He was killed in
a car accident, so then that's what it just kind
of I kind of spired out of control even more.
I mean, that was the only guy who's ever pumped
any type of positivity, and so losing him was hard.
And that's ultimately how I end up turning into being
(05:32):
in the gangs and drug dealing. And my teens was
totally different, just because I was a father. At the
age of fourteen, I was kicked out the eighth grade,
and a lot of my friends was already either older
and in the gang or my age, and we were
selecting what game who was.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Gonna be in.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
So in my neighborhood, it wasn't a matter of if
he was gonna be in a gang, it was more
like what game.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
When my child we got pregnant.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
You know, my dad really didn't have any advice for me,
and so I was able to lean on the guys
in the gang and they gave me my first counsel
weed to be able to take care of my child
mom as she was going through a pregnancy. So me, ultimately,
I stepped up to the plate. To the rest been
history ever since.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
And you're listening to Melvin Cole, who's the headmaster at
Pure Youth Athletics Alliance in Memphis, Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Born in South Memphis.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
His family members were well drug users, drug sellers, traumatic deaths.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
His father lost two of his.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Kids and said to his son at one point, why
didn't God take you and not the girls? I imagine
hearing something like that, and of course Melvin fired back,
why don't you die and go ask him? His mother
had all kinds of trauma herself, and by the time
he was sixteen, the only people he could look up to.
His uncles were in games and we're drug dealers. At
(07:02):
the age of ten, he knew we might have had
a skill in football and said, I'll either be the
best football player or the best drug dealer, one of
the two in my neighborhood. He said, it wasn't a
matter of if you joined a gang, but which gang.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
When we come.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Back, more of the story of Melvin Cole Here on
Our American Stories. Leehbib Here, host of Our American Stories.
Every day on this show, we bring you stories of America,
stories of us, and it's because of listeners like you
that were able to tell the story of this great
(07:39):
and beautiful country every day. Our stories will always be
free to listen to, but they're not free to make
If you love what you hear, consider making a tax
deductible donation to our American Stories. Is it our American
stories dot Com to give, give a little, give a lot,
any amount helps, but to our American Stories dot Com.
(08:09):
And we returned to our American Stories and with Melvin
Cole's story. When we last left off, Melvin had decided
that he was either going to be the best drug
dealer in the world or the best football player in
the world. After the tragic death of his football coach,
he chose the latter. In short order, he was kicked
out of middle school and became a father at the
(08:31):
age of fourteen.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Let's return to the story.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
So you know, I didn't play fortball my ninth grade
year at all. I got kicked out of school my
eighth grade year, coach Jones dying the year before, having
my child on the way, I just figured it's time
for me to step up and be a man. And
one of the local high school coaches who recruited me
from middle school convinced you.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Know me heard I was going down the own road.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
To Ultimately, he end up kind of ushering me to
Briar Crest where he felt like if I got out
that environment that I was in.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
He could changed my life. Brian Christ.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
It's predominantly white, all white, yeah, I mean rich kids.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
At the time, Hugh Freeze was the star.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Head football coach, and it was one of those things
that it was good, but it was bad. It was
one of that if you're not prepped to be in
that environment, if you're not if you don't understand.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
That environment, it does more harm than good.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Coming over to Briar Christ, they had went to the
state championship, but they never wanted My senior year, we
end up went in the state championship first time in
school history.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
You know what I mean. Everybody's riding high with Ryan Fly.
I had already.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Signed my football scholarship Division one to Bowling Green State University.
So to go through that that process and helped the
school get their first state championship in history, and to
be kicked out over what bridcers like they call pre
marital sex, that was a hard peal.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
For me to swallow.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Black guys don't have sex with white women. Probably now
everybody's cool with it. Mois that we're talking about twenty
years ago. Yeah, I mean twenty years ago. Memphis Tennessee.
Is is really not the best thing you do as
a young man. From the it really changed how I
(10:38):
saw relationships.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
I lost all the ability to trust in relationship. So
the thing with me going off to college is my mom.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
She ended up begging one of the local principles at
white Haven why I got kicked out my ninth grade year,
and I was able to kind of get in there
and finished up to be able to go off to college.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
But it was one of those things where I still
needed money.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
The need for money for myself, the need for money
for my daughter. It never changed. So now it just
turned into okay, how do you do both? So ultimately
I suffered a kidney injury on the field, which when
I really wanted to press and just kind of start
to question if I was ever gonna get back on
(11:31):
the field, if I was ever gonna have a chance
to play, if I was ever gonna try to go
to the draft. So then from there I just started
to get deeper and deeper into the drug business.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
And from there I was in a drug deal that.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Went wrong in Chicago or Illinois, where I took two shots,
one to the head and one to the back, which
ended my football career. And that's when I just I
came over with this phrase, hell or sale. I was
gonna put the game down so hard that somebody was
gonna have to kid me or I was gonna get
life in prison. And that was my goal. I was
(12:08):
never gonna stop. What I mean, that was my life.
This I was this in my mind, this is what
I was destined to be.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
This I was.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
That's what I was made for, you know what I mean,
because I looked at it as you say out the time.
If God didn't want me to be a drug dealer,
he wouldn't have put me around drugs and drug dealers.
I got the ultimate reward, sentenced to sixty eight months
in prison with an opportunity of parole after two and
a half years. And it was just prison was hard.
(12:37):
Prison was hard from a lot of different areas, adjusting
to how other people lived. So I had already, of course,
with me running a cocaine ring out in northwest Ohio
in seven cities. I was accustomed to doing things my.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Own way and living my own way.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
So now to be restricted and defined controlled, I mean,
it played on me mentally. Then it's the other side
of prison that you don't hear with men walking around
acting like women wearing kool aid, and I mean guys
getting raped and Peter Beach and me personally, I don't
(13:18):
believe any man is ready to see that.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Witnessing that was.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Life changing, because that's that's the stuff that nobody talks about.
That's the stuff that it's not in a rap song.
That's the stuff that's not in the movies. So for
me to witness a boy screaming like a woman, a
boy having blood skiing everywhere, was crazy, Like that's you're
(13:48):
not prepared to see that. I mean, because there's still
some human and everybody that's inside of it. And then
when you got to look at it in the reality,
only person that you can turn on is God. That's
what it comes down to. It's not about how tough
you are. It's not about if you're gay or not.
It's not it's not about if you're cool or not.
(14:09):
It's not about where you're from. It's literally who gets
picked that day. I mean, you know, you got a
guy that finds out his girlfriend she no, they go
over a fight that could you could cost that God
could cost his life.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
You could cost your life. I mean there's there's so
many different variables. So when you sit down and you really.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Take everything off the table, take all the ego off
the tape, you realize it's only God. That's why you
have so many people converting to God while they're in prison,
because they look at it like that's only That's the
only person that can stop you from being.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
On the menu that day. And that's what ultimately changed
my life.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Witness in a brutal riping just because I want in
my cell and I told God, I said, God, that
cannot happen to me, period because if it do, I'm
killing all of them and then and I'm killing myself.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
I said, There's no way that can happen to me.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
So it was a lot of different emotional and a
lot of different things that I was prepared for, but
it was so many things mentally that I wasn't prepared
for going in. I was prepared physically, but not mentally
for the toll it was going to take on on
your mind. When the rest of my bid I was,
(15:25):
I was, I was focused, but I still had this
stinky thinking, you know what I mean. I still had
an ideal of when I got out, I was gonna
move to Central America, and I was going to import
narcotics to the United States. So the whole thing I
was chasing Craig Pettis and Barbico, I was chasing all them.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
I was chasing my family.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
I wanted to I wanted to be higher up in
the food chain. I want I want to be the
best that ever did it. I still had that that vision,
that ech. But then my uncle died while I was
in prison. That killed a deal that I have been
working on. And you know, it was one of them
(16:09):
things that God literally removed everybody that can help me
do wrong. And so from there it's when I started.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
To kind of dissect my life.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
And I said, when I get out, I'm gonna start
a Little League team. That's the first thing I'm gonna do.
I said, I'm gonna get kids what I didn't have.
And I said, if I can do a little League team,
I can. I can preserve the innocence, because see, that's
what people don't understand and the hood, that's what get
takes right away. It's all about survival. And I wanted
(16:44):
those kids innocence. I wanted them where we could they
could just run around and be free and they can
play ball. Ain't nobody worried about no no, no food,
no stipends, no how we gonna get here? And that's
what got me through my time. Com meet me with gods.
When I get out of here, I'm gonna com meet
the rest of my life to saving young man that
(17:05):
looked like me.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
And you're listening to Melvin Cole tell one heck of
a story. He rose to local prominence at Briercrest Powerhouse
of a sport program in Memphis, and in college, he
still needed money for himself and his kid. He just
got deeper and deeper into the drug trade, shot twice
in the head doing a deal or a deal that
went south. The next thing you know, he's in prison
(17:29):
for sixty eight months. He saw things he never should
have seen in prison, and the only thing that saved him,
he said, is God. He said, God removed everyone in
my life that I could do wrong with. My dream
went from being a drug dealer to saving young men that.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Looked like me.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
When we come back, we'll find out how Melvin Cole
did just that, did just that here on our American stories.
(18:08):
And we returned to our American stories and the final
portion of Melvin Cole's story. When we last left off,
Melvin had found himself in prison and had come out
of a changed man. His biggest desire to form a
little league team and help prevent kids from ending up
in jail like he did, would soon turned into a
boarding school called Pure.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Let's get back to the story.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
He started off as a little league team, and just
like every other inner city little league coach, you're dropping
off kids that no electricity, no parents, no food. You mean,
knowing the environment, sleeping on a porch in the Foothomes project.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
With me directly being a part of it, I understood
what was gonna take place night with those kids.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
So I looked up.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
At me and my fiance was sharing a two bedroom
downtown apartment with about fifteen young men, just because.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
That's how many kids. I knew.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
It was all about the environment. I kept saying it,
it's the environment. It was the environment. I kept telling
people about myself. It was the environment.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
And so I had.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Came up with this idea, just kind of based off
of my life. I said, well, what if I sent
them to a private school, but they lived with me
and I could mirror what was going on at the school,
and they can come home and we can have those
conversations and do those things. Because the thing about it
(19:41):
is being a high level drug dealer. It exposed me
to a lot, a lot of people, a lot of knowledge,
a lot of wealth. So I had a lot to share,
I had a lot to give. I had a lot
to give. So we had came up with the idea.
So the private school wanted them to take interesting exam
to get in. Well, then all the boys schooled in
(20:04):
a zero percentile and reading, writing, and math, and this
is nothing I never forget. I looked at the guy,
said what does that mean? He said that means a
can't come here, and he said it in such a
disgusting way that automatically reverted me back to my bride
(20:25):
Christ days where we wasn't good enough, or we.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Was out of place, or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
So I decided to close down my full profit gym
and turn it into a school for the boys. So
I reached out to their parents and I said, I
want to remove them from the school. I said, I'm
gonna get some volunteers and a little small staff, and this.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Is what I want to do. I want to move
the needle. I know what they need. I'm them.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
So the first year we got three point seventh grade
level jump. The next year we got a three point.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
One grade level jump.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
And then that's when I started saying, hey, let's put
them against the act to kind of really see where
they are. Want. Some of our kids got a positive
twenty twenty one, and I want't screaming like, hey it works.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
It's all about the environment. I said. No kid is bad,
no person is bad. They adapt to the environment. That's
all of it is.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
These kids and people, they'll adapt to whatever.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
They're gonna adapt to the environment.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
If I come into a environment where everybody wears nice
shiny suits, guess what overtime I start wearing nice shiny suits.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
You know what I mean. If I come in and
guys are.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Shooting dice and smoking crack, guess what over time I'm
an shoot dice and smoke crack.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
The environment is the environment. I mean they call it
the trap for a reason. I mean, because there's so
many different things that can trap you and make you
stay inside of her. So pure stands for progressing under
restraints and extremes and That's what I believe the young
men in Memphis, and ultimately a lot of the young
(22:13):
men that liveing in inner city of the United States.
I mean, they gotta progress no matter what. So when
you start talking about what you mean under extremes and restraints, well,
our kids in living in double the national average of property.
Our kids are living in double the national average or
food hardship. So that means our kids aren't getting the
(22:35):
bare necessities. Right now, Memphis, Tennessee, we got thirty five
percent of our kids living two hundred percent below property level.
But you still got to progress. You can't make excuses.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
For what neighborhood with zip code. You can't make excuses,
who your mama is.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Who your daddy is, You can't make any excuses. You
still gotta get it done. I mean, that's why I
tell people all the time. Instead of crying about the hand,
you would the figure out how to play it, because you.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Still got played. You can't throw the cards here.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
That was the whole basis of perod That was the
whole basis of my life. And that's what we teach
the boys dep At six point thirty. We start the
day with meditation, then they work out. When they get
done working out, they got shower and breakfast, They go
to school for three hours, then they take a lunch,
(23:29):
then they do another.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Three hours of school.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
But the latter three hours are all based off of
agriculture and technology. Also, we have our education enrichment where
if you didn't whatever you didn't get in class, you
can get it in the in the evening time when
we have our tutors come in or we got kids
that really can get pushed to head, we utilize that
(23:51):
as well. And then so the light they get from
nine thirty to ten thirty, they get free time to
hang out, talk on the phone, video, play music, chess,
whatever they want to do. Lights out, ten thirty start
all over again. So right now we're running at an
eighty six percent matriculation rate of young men going to college.
(24:15):
Right now, we got over twenty five first generational college
students sitting in the classroom. Our first college graduate graduates
this spring, Tevin Carter from Tennessee State University.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
So we excited. Character is everything. Characters say your life.
Character keep you alive.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
So I've always been I've always been big on myself
having a high character and our boys because maybe your
bank account look funny today, Maybe your clothes look funny today.
Maybe you didn't get a haircut, maybe you miss a shower.
But your character, you can always control your character. That
(24:57):
has nothing to do with anybody else. It's all about
out you. How you see you, how your characters show up.
That's the true reflection of how you see you. A
lot of kids say out the time, dang coach, I
never thought about it like that. I said, I know,
that's what that's why I'm here. Then they started to
(25:17):
get it because see I'm talking in their language, like
one of the biggest things in our school. We got
these big mirrors and every day I'll tell the bulls,
look at yourself.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
What you hire you, would you marry you?
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Won't you be scared of you? You look like you're
gonna rob me. So if you look like you're gonna
rob me, I'm gonna treat you like you're gonna rob me.
All perceptions of violence two things can be true. And
when you gotta teacher how boys that, No, you gotta
be conscious of how you look. That's the reality of it.
You will be judged by how you look. If you
(25:52):
look like you're gonna rob me, I'm gonna treat you,
and I'm black.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
No what I tell them?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I'm black?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Then I put it? Did I put it on them?
I say, what you think when you see a little
homie with a ski mass on?
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Ah? Yeah, coach, he's trying to slim me. All right? Then,
so you get it.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
So you get it all right? Now both of us
just agree we get it. Now let me show you
how we change it. Because see that's what people don't understand. Yeah,
you can tell me all day long, but until you
show me till you walk me through it, then that's
a horse of a different color. So now you got
to start with the understanding because I always flipped it
back on them.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
Now let's do something about it. See we can fix that.
We allow you to make you know what I mean,
you can make four five mistakes here. It ain't one
and done.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
So it is.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
This is the biggest thing where I tell our staff,
our coaches, I say, kids don't care what you know
until they know that you care. And that's the first
thing is man, you gotta let them know, like, hey,
there's nothing difference.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Between me and you besides clothes and gray hair.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
And thanks to Melvin Cole, the headmaster at Pure Youth
Athletics Alliance in Memphis, Tennessee. And what a story he
told here. And I love those questions he asked those
young men, Would you hire you? Would you marry you?
So many people doing work like this across the country.
(27:20):
We celebrate it. Melvin Cole, his story here on our
American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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