Once 'labeled a menace to society,' Louisville football's Kemari Averett now a rising star

Upon his release from Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail, Kemari Averett feared some of its squalor had stuck to him. He wanted to see a doctor. He wanted to be checked for lice. He wanted to be sure he had left the place permanently.

“It’s overcrowded,” said Deborah Hutson-Singleton, Fulton County’s pretrial release officer. “At the time Kemari was in there, people were sleeping on the floor on mats and things. I was there when he walked out. I was standing inside the door with his mom and I asked him, ‘What is it like in there?’ He was like, ‘It’s dirty. The food’s not good. I can’t go back in there.’ He was like, ‘Never again.’

“I never had another problem with him after walking across that parking lot.”

Nine days in what Hutson-Singleton refers to as “Big Boy Jail” made a lasting and transformative impression on Averett in April 2015. Then just 17 years old, locked up for violating the terms of a bond on a charge of armed robbery, Averett resolved to cling to football as a means to escape his circumstances and to clean up the act that had led to his incarceration.

The University of Louisville’s freshman tight end could have been a statistic, but he wanted to be a star.

“This is the case I’ll never forget,” said Anne Watson, who represented Averett as a public defender. “It’s just a great success story.”

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“He wants the prize at the end of the finish line,” said Myss T. Johnson-Jelks, formerly the athletic director at Atlanta’s Henry Grady High School. “He’s going to do whatever it takes.”

For a span of nearly 19 months, though, Kemari Averett’s future was deeply in doubt. Accused of stealing a cell phone at gunpoint on the morning of July 14, 2014, Averett was arrested and ultimately charged with armed robbery and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Though he was a juvenile at the time, the armed robbery charge made him eligible for adult court and a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. He would spend three months in a regional youth detention center before being released on bond and would later compete for Grady’s football team wearing an ankle monitor per the terms of his probation.

His path to college football is already a lot longer than any pass route he will ever run.

“It took a lot for me not to cry on signing day,” Averett tweeted after signing his letter of intent with U of L. “I once was labeled a menace to society. I once was labeled a threat to the community. My whole entire career was almost wash (sic) down the drain.”

That Averett has overcome his rap sheet to earn a college scholarship and the unprompted praise of U of L coach Bobby Petrino and quarterback Lamar Jackson speaks to the value of sports opportunities as motivation and to the support of the people who fought to preserve his potential. It speaks to the tenacity of a public defender, to the tough love of a court officer and to the shared belief that Averett was a soul worth saving and capable of change.

“He’s like a 5-year-old trapped inside a 6-5 body,” said Johnson-Jelks, short-changing Averett by 2 inches. “He is one of the most playful kids you would ever meet. He’s the kind who would pull your hair and run, just a big kid who was caught up in a bad situation who has done everything right since he left.”

“He’s the one,” Watson said, “that everybody wanted to stick their neck out for.”

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By his own admission, Averett was once a “problem child” with a history of fights. Hutson-Singleton said his juvenile record included two robbery cases and a criminal trespass charge, “escalating behavior” that posed a hurdle during his bond hearings in the armed robbery case.

But as Watson examined the evidence, she discovered the prosecution’s case was problematic. The victim, Joseph Laboy, initially estimated the taller of his two assailants to be 6 feet, 2 inches — 5 inches shorter than the imposing Averett. Police were led to Averett’s home minutes later by two witnesses Watson described in court as “very dicey.” 

“I talked to the witnesses,” Watson said. “I figured out that nothing made sense to me. ... For some reason, they had it in for him. It was all just stupid drama that these teenagers do. They know the trouble that they’re getting these people into, and they don’t care.”

Averett met the police wearing red shorts matching Laboy’s description, but without the red hoodie that Laboy remembered seeing. Laboy’s phone was not recovered. No handgun was found. Characterizing the case as “misidentification,” Watson was able to negotiate a plea bargain that reduced the felony charges to misdemeanors: disorderly conduct and possession of a handgun by a person under 18.

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On the advice of his attorney, Averett pled to the lesser charges rather than risk a trial, but he maintains he was innocent of stealing the cell phone. He does so without a trace of anger or indignation, though, as if to concede he had done enough wrong to warrant suspicion.

“I wasn’t always a good guy,” he admitted. “I’m not going to say I was perfect. I got in trouble, but it wasn’t that kind of trouble.”

Recounting the morning of the robbery, Averett said he returned home that morning from an AAU basketball practice, looked out the window and saw “a lot of police outside.”

“They came and knocked on my door (and asked) ‘Were you at a robbery this morning?’” he recalled. “I said, ‘No, I just came from practice.’ I had on my jersey.”

The police then performed a “showup,” bringing Averett to the scene of the crime, where Laboy identified him as the culprit. Hutson-Singleton, aware that Averett’s chance at a college scholarship likely hinged on having the felony charges reduced, said she would encounter “a lot of pushback” from prosecutors.

“It takes so long in Fulton County to prove to the DA that this case is wrong,” Watson said. “You have to get everything on a silver platter.”

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Presenting Averett’s plea deal to Superior Court Judge Tom Campbell on Feb. 8, 2016, Watson called it, “an against-all-odds case.”

“It was unbelievable to even be a part of it,” said Hutson-Singleton, whose role included ordering Averett jailed when the criminal trespass charge violated his bond. “I feel Kemari, who he was before I met him, he did not want to be that person anymore. He made the decision to change.”

Though serving in the criminal justice system can make one susceptible to cynicism, those who worked closest with Kemari Averett came away convinced he was ready to reform. Sent to an alternative school known for violence and gang culture – Atlanta’s Forrest Hill Academy – he was able to avoid new issues and earn good enough grades to transfer to Grady.

“Less than 10 percent get out" of Forrest Hill Academy, Hutson-Singleton said. “Kemari was able to get out and get sent back to regular school. That’s a big deal. He went to the alternative school where they fight all day, every day. Gang fights every day. He was not involved in that.” 

“I knew what I had,” Averett said. “If I got in trouble, I knew if I went back to jail, it was going to be some problems. I chose to stay out of trouble.’’

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He found purpose in football, in the belief that he had the size and skill to earn a college scholarship and to play professionally, and he started turning heads at Grady just by walking through the halls as a jumbo-sized junior.

“When I first saw him, I saw a 6-6, 215-pound guy at the school,” Grady coach Earthwind Moreland said. “When a coach sees someone like that, usually his eyes light up. I asked him, ‘What sport do you play?’ He told me he was a football player. That was music to my ears. ...

“He still has a lot of upside because he can improve his route-running. He can improve his blocking. The sky’s the limit. He has the mentality of he can be dominant. If he can do what I think he can do, in three years you’ll see him walking across the stage ready to get drafted.”

Averett caught 77 passes and scored 16 touchdowns in two seasons at Grady and doubled as a disruptive defensive end. Opponents would sometimes taunt him about his ankle monitor, “to try to get to me and throw me off my game, but I knew what I was trying to do.’

“I was so focused, it didn’t really matter,’’ he said. “It didn’t really bother me.”

Able to play without the monitor as a senior, Averett earned a first-team berth on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s All-Metro team and was named an all-state selection in Georgia’s Class 5-A. Though Averett says the universities of Georgia and Alabama “held back on me” because of his police record, 247sports.com logged 11 scholarship offers, including pitches from Illinois, Indiana and Western Kentucky as well as Louisville.

“This kid, he cried out for a second chance," said U of L athletic director Tom Jurich, who signed off on Averett's signing. "I know people don’t believe it -- they think maybe we’re Second Chance U. -- but there are a lot of kids that we don’t take. He was one – everybody just raved about him. And then seeing him out here, it’s been unbelievable; not just his talent, but how much the other kids love him.

“I would be shocked if he’s anything but a wonderful citizen."

Lonnie Galloway, Louisville's co-offensive coordinator, was the lead recruiter on Averett, and succeeded in signing him without benefit of a campus visit. When Galloway asked for a "stamp of approval," Grady's Moreland says, "I saw no reason not to." 

“We treat every situation on a case-by-case basis,” Petrino said of U of L’s background checks. ”Before we recruit any player, we always do our homework. We spend a lot of time reaching out to high school coaches, administrators, parents and other influential people to get a gauge on the type of person we are adding to our program.

“As a staff, we are very cognizant of attracting the right players to our program. In Kemari’s situation, we vetted him thoroughly and talked to a number of people who were vital in his life, and we were confident that he would have a positive impact on our program.”

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For now, Averett figures to fall behind veterans Charles Standberry and Mickey Crum on U of L’s depth chart, but tight ends coach Chris Klenakis anticipates his size, speed and reach will command playing time.

“He’s a very impressive athlete,” Klenakis said. “He moves well, bends well and he’s an extremely fast learner. ... He’s got great hands, big hands. He takes the air out of the ball when he catches it.”

To Standberry, Kemari Averett is a typical freshman – “goofy,” “silly” and loaded with potential. What Standberry has not seen is a menace to society.

“You can’t even tell that he’s been through those things,” he said. “He’s such a great guy, you don’t see any negative. All I see is good in him.”

Tim Sullivan can be reached at 502-582-4650, tsullivan@courier-journal.com or @TimSullivan714 on Twitter.