Staying On the Right Track

Six years ago, Leodes Van Buren was a rising star chasing football dreams like so many spiraling passes.

A senior at Newbury Park High School, he was the state’s all-time leading pass receiver, a kid who escaped South-Central Los Angeles’ gritty streets to earn a football scholarship at the University of Colorado.

But two months shy of graduation from the school in Newbury Park he pulled a gun on his girlfriend and blew away a promising athletic career. Other crimes followed, and Van Buren eventually landed in state prison for robbing a pizza parlor two miles from the stadium where he once dazzled hometown crowds.

Now, two men who tried to help Van Buren turn his life around have produced a short video about his rise and fall in hopes of preventing other young athletes from stumbling down the same destructive path.

Starting this month, co-producers John Jenks and the Rev. Paul Bergmann plan to send copies of the 18-minute video they crafted with filmmaker Bob Howell to high school coaches across Ventura County.

Their project comes at a time when professional athletes have gained notoriety for violent off-the-field incidents.

By highlighting Van Buren’s story, the men hope to show student athletes what can happen if they lose control of their tempers or succumb to the allure of drugs and alcohol.

“Our message is: It doesn’t matter how much talent you’ve got, if you can’t hold it together off the field, you can’t make it on the field,” said Jenks, a private investigator who befriended Van Buren three years ago.

“He was on track to be that all-American success story,” Jenks said. “What a shame.”

Van Buren’s story began in a gang-plagued South-Central neighborhood. He was raised by a single mother. At age 12, he formed a bond with sixth-grade teacher Ken McGee and later moved into his home in suburban Newbury Park. He joined a flag football team and became a star.

At Newbury Park High, the 6-foot-1, 190-pound receiver became a favorite target for quarterback Keith Smith. They developed the best passing attack in the state, appeared in Sports Illustrated, and were pursued by college recruiters.

In their senior year, Smith and Van Buren led Newbury Park High to a 14-0 record and the Southern Section Division III championship. In January 1994, Van Buren accepted an offer from the University of Colorado.

Three months later, his world fell apart.

During an argument with his then-girlfriend, Marcie James, Van Buren pulled a .38-caliber semiautomatic handgun from his waistband and fired a single shot through her back door. James, who was standing just three feet away, later told police he had threatened to kill her.

Ventura County prosecutors filed felony weapons charges against Van Buren, who denied firing the gun. The scholarship was withdrawn. Van Buren was convicted and served four months in Ventura County Jail.

Since then, he has enrolled at various community colleges and worked sporadically. Court records show that, before last year’s robbery, he was arrested at least five times on suspicion of crimes ranging from battering a shoe salesman to sexually assaulting two former girlfriends.

It was after the 1997 shoe store incident that Van Buren met Jenks, 46, a former Port Hueneme police officer.

“He really wanted to change his life,” said Jenks, who found Van Buren a job working at a homeless shelter in Camarillo and recruited him to help coach youth softball in Ojai. He also introduced Van Buren to Bergmann.

A former All-American receiver at UCLA, Bergmann played three seasons for the Kansas City Chiefs before an injury ended his NFL career. He spent the next 10 years counseling high school students before settling in Ojai.

For a while, Van Buren flourished. He enrolled at Ventura College and worked for the Salvation Army. Jenks said it seemed Van Buren finally got his life together.

“Then he started playing football again, started partying again,” Jenks said. “He just backslid.”

In April 2000, Van Buren entered a Newbury Park Domino’s where he was used to getting free pizza, court records show. When two employees refused to give him a “deal,” Van Buren pushed one against a wall, knocking a money box to the floor. Police say Van Buren grabbed $45 and fled. He was later convicted of robbery and got an 11-year sentence.

After this incident, Jenks and Bergmann came up with the video idea. They approached Van Buren, and he agreed to participate.

Van Buren sat in a courtroom after his September sentencing hearing and talked about the dangers of drugs, alcohol and running with a bad crowd.

“It can kind of sneak up on you,” Van Buren said. “It did me.”

The video begins with a fast-paced mix of old game footage--Smith back to pass, Van Buren making the catch. Then it cuts to interviews with Smith, Jenks, Bergmann and finally Van Buren, dressed in a blue jail uniform.

“The message of this video,” Bergmann says, “is ‘I don’t want you to be the next Leodes Van Buren.’ ”

That message, Nordhoff High School athletic director Cliff Farrar says, will resonate with students.

Farrar, Nordhoff’s head football coach, recently viewed the video and intends to show it to his team in the spring.

Farrar said the video illustrates how Van Buren and Smith--who went on to play football at Arizona--ended up in different places based on their choices.

“One choice gets you in jail,” Farrar said. “One choice gets you a different lifestyle.”