Homeless high school student signs to play D2 football

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He's homeless and works from 3-7 a.m. to make ends meet. Now he's signed to play college football.

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Fort Worth Arlington Heights' Leslie Adindu was homeless and never played in a varsity game. Thanks to his perseverance and dedication, Adindu signed with Southwest Baptist University on Wednesday during National Signing Day.

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A family dispute culminating in his father’s move to New Orleans left Adindu without a place to live in Fort Worth.

The 19-year-old found himself living in a shelter.

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Young found out that because Adindu was a legal adult at 19 years old, he had to hold a job to keep his place in the shelter. When Young heard Adindu’s work schedule was 3-7, his heart sank because he thought it would conflict with school and practice time.

“Leslie said three to seven and I thought, ‘Oh man you can’t make practice.’ But he quickly corrected me and said, ‘No Coach, 3-7 a.m. I work and then I’ll come to school.’”

Wait, what?

Young was floored. That type of perseverance was to be rewarded by crushing opposing offenses on Friday nights with the rest of his teammates. There was just one issue: Adindu was two and a half weeks too old to play UIL football. He filed for an over-age waiver, which was denied.

“My heart broke,” Young said. “I thought football would help Leslie’s chances of getting out of his situation. But after a few minutes I realized just because he couldn’t play games didn’t mean we couldn’t help him.”

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“I told Leslie if he came to school everyday and showed up at practice and worked out, we’d play him in our scrimmages to get a little tape out there, we’d bug every college coach in the country at every school we could until we found someone who’d give him a shot,” Young said.

Adindu held up his end of the bargain. He showed up on time to school each and every day, coming to practice and working as hard as the rest of the team despite not having a game to look forward to on Friday night.

“For Leslie to do that, just shows what kind of heart he has,” Young said. “There aren’t a lot of kids who would keep showing up and working after being told they were ineligible. For him to do that, made us work even harder to find him a spot.”

Young went to work. He had the coaching contacts; he just needed a program to see the upside that Adindu presented.

Enter Southwest Baptist University, a Division II school in Bolivar, Missouri.

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