DIVERSE

When your mother is a white woman from Mississippi and your father is an African-American from Nigeria, family life is anything but normal.

Consider that your mother is a boisterous, Bible-carrying ordained minister who doesn’t want her teenage son to watch “The Simpsons” and your father is a soft-spoken social worker, and you have the foundation for a television sitcom.

Jody Adewale, a junior running back and linebacker at East L.A.’s Roosevelt High, thrives on meeting people from diverse cultures. After all, he lives in a Boyle Heights apartment with parents who preach tolerance even though they’ve seen the ugliness of intolerance.

“Ever since I can remember, I’ve known these values,” Adewale said. “I’ve grown up [with] right is right, wrong is wrong and there’s no compromise.”

Adewale’s mother, Linda, is never bashful about giving her opinions.

“I’m a radical and revolutionary,” she said.

She celebrates Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Yom Kippur....

“She’s a religious person, times 100,” Adewale said. “She carries the Bible wherever she goes.”

She was an operator for a phone company when she heard the voice of a customer trying to call Nigeria that intrigued her.

“‘Roots’ had just aired on TV and I was interested in Africa,” she said.

That’s how she met her future husband, Sunday.

“She liked my accent,” he said.

They are contrasts in personalities. Sunday is relatively quiet; Linda never stops talking.

“She’s loud,” Sunday said. “Sometimes she forgets she’s still living in this world.”

She grew up in Louisville, Miss., when there were bathrooms and drinking fountains for whites and blacks.

“I began to think something is wrong here,” she said.

Some in Linda’s family still haven’t forgiven her for marrying a black man, a sad saga straight out of the racial turmoil of the ‘60s.

“It’s difficult for everybody,” Sunday said. “When we go there, [some family members] don’t welcome us. They don’t even want to see us.”

If only they could see the magic that happens when 16-year-old Jody is on a football field for Roosevelt, which has won six of seven games this season.

“It’s the delight of my heart to watch him succeed,” Linda said.

In six of seven games this season, he has rushed for more than 100 yards. Three times he has gained more than 200 yards. Against Rosemead Bosco Tech, he ran 97 yards for a touchdown.

“He’s an explosive, powerful runner,” Coach Jose Casagran said of the 6-foot, 215-pounder.

Football, school and religion--those are “the basis of my teen life,” Adewale said.

Football has assumed a special place.

“Without it, I feel headless,” he said. “It’s like an extra finger has grown on me, and I’m so used to it. I love running the ball and people looking at me.”

He sees something poetic, if not inspiring, in the drama of two schools competing on a football field.

“The fact two different communities can come together and solve their problems--I love it,” he said.

He lives in a neighborhood where gangs are part of his daily challenge, but he’s not frightened or intimidated.

“I’ve learned to live with it,” he said. “For everything bad, there’s something good. There’s a lot of heritage. They won’t start a fight in front of your mom or sister. They set boundaries. You don’t mess with him, he won’t mess with you.”

Whether motivated by his father’s quiet teachings or his mother’s vocal urgings, Adewale is a teenager intrigued by the future.

“There’s so much I want to do,” he said. “I think about being a psychiatrist or going into government and being a politician. There’s so much out there to decide. I want to learn something new every day.”

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.