Father, Friend and Brother Rolled Into One

The most striking thing about Brian Hink and Dane Worley is that they look so much alike. The way Dane, 9, squints his eyes, or crosses his legs, or shrugs off a stray thought, is like a boy who doesn’t yet know how much he is like his father.

Even when the two hold a basketball, as they did last week in Tustin’s Cedar Grove Park, outsiders can see that someday, when Dane is 26--Brian’s age--he too will probably be 6 feet 6 and walk with feline grace.

But the two are not father and son. In fact, they met only 3 1/2 years ago, when their files were matched at a Big Brothers/Big Sisters program. One of the organization’s Orange County chapters was trying to find a male role model for Dane, somebody to take him to baseball games, talk to him about girls, help him with his homework. Dane’s father died in 1992 from cancer.

Since they were brought together, the two, both of Tustin, have cultivated an unusual relationship that has surprised even those at the Big Brothers program, a friendship that somehow is much more than that of a father and son, or a brother and brother, or a friend and friend, because, by design and hope, it must be all of those things.

“They are not unusual because of the length of time they’ve known each other or anything like that. But it’s an unusual relationship, because that is what it is. They just clicked,” said Jolene Felkner, a spokeswoman for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Orange County in Tustin.

For years now, the two have met at least once a week to do the simplest of things: go to the batting cages, take in a movie, watch baseball. And often it hasn’t been easy. Hink said filling several different roles for Dane is sometimes confusing. At bedtime one night when Dane was staying with Hink, Hink had trouble being stern: How, Hink asks, do you discipline a child who sometimes sees you as a benign older brother but an authority figure at other times?

“I was very nervous when I first met him,” said Hink, who installs home security systems for a living and enrolled in the Big Brother program to see if he was suited for fatherhood. He got married last year, and his bride supports his Big Brother role. Dane is the son of Tustin mayor pro tem Tracy Wills Worley. “He’s the son of the mayor, and his father passed on. I know I’m not supposed to fill that spot, but there’s still pressure.”

Dane is articulate and well-spoken, like a boy who spends more time with older folks than with his peers. Of the time he and Brian met, Dane says, “When he came over . . . I thought he was just somebody to work on the house. He is . . . a lot of things to me now.”

Dane doesn’t fit the stereotype of the wayward child who needs a father figure to set him right. More than anything, those who know him figure, he’s just a kid who needed somebody to talk to.

It’s an easy camaraderie now. When asked what, fundamentally, they see in each other, the two of them grin and say in unison: “He’s my friend, I guess,” and laugh.

Dane’s father died in 1992 after a long struggle with melanoma. Dane was only 2. In search of a male role model who might fill the empty spot in Dane’s life, Dane’s mother enrolled him in the Big Brothers program. Dane wanted to be matched with someone much older.

It’s still difficult for Dane to talk about the loss of his father, and the two skip over it swiftly. But it is there, and Hink knows it.

Hink says it’s difficult for him--not wanting to presume that he can fill the father’s shoes, but at the same time eager to be a version of a father to Dane. Dane bows his head a little when the subject of his father comes up.

Sometimes it’s easier to play sports, to work on Dane’s baseball swing. “Brian is the one who made my swing better,” Dane said. And so they do, finding a soccer field after school, playing basketball at Dane’s home on a roll-out basketball hoop, throwing the baseball around. In between, they talk.

“I think the best thing I can do for Dane is to be there for him consistently. That’s what I can do, be there for him whenever he needs it. Eventually (Big Brothers/Big Sisters) will close the file, but I know I’ll always be a part of his life.”

On Father’s Day, the two say they are not going to shoot hoops. It wouldn’t seem right. But they will the day after.

* PARSONS

A Santa Ana family remembers how a father lost his life working to save his trapped son. B3