Irvine family refuses to let teen fall through the cracks after his mother’s death

At age 17, Curtis Jackson has already faced obstacles most teenagers can scarcely imagine — being uprooted to a strange place as a pre-teen, losing his mother to illness and facing the possible end to his pursuits in education and football.

But through the hurdles, he said there were two teams that were always behind him — the Irvine High School football squad and the Filia family in Irvine.

Two months after Curtis’ mother died late last year, Mike and Stacey Filia became his guardians.

Curtis, who is now a senior at Irvine High and beginning his third year on the school’s varsity football team, first moved to Orange County when he was 11.

Born in Los Angeles and raised in Watts, Curtis remembers playing football in the streets with his cousins starting at age 5.

Growing up in Watts, the teen said it was anything but quiet.

“You’ll see everyone out on the street,” Curtis said. “One guy will be selling socks on one corner, other guys will be rolling dice on the other and a fight will be going on in another corner.”

The aspiring player became a part of the Mona Park Hurricanes, a youth team in the neighborhood.

While playing for them, he always recalled hearing the name “Mikey Filia” buzzing around the football community.

At that time, Mike Filia’s son, Mikey, was playing for the Irvine Chargers, a youth team in Orange County. Mike was president of the team.

“People kept saying there was this kid from Irvine, No. 5, who was fast and I knew I had to see him,” Curtis said. “I watched him play in one game.”

The two, however, never got the chance to play against one another that season.

Around age 9, Curtis wrote down all the goals he had for himself, a task his mother Quinyawnna Evans asked him to do. The list included two things: Get a good education and play football professionally.

By the time Curtis was about to finish the fifth grade, Evans brought up the idea of moving to Irvine in hopes that it would move him toward his goals.

“She said it’d be better for me to grow up here, but I did not want to come to Irvine,” he said. “I realized later that she was putting me before her. She believed I could be something different.”

In the summer of 2009, Evans and Curtis moved into an apartment in Irvine. She worked jobs as a security guard at an airport and a hairstylist while her son attended the sixth grade at Brywood Elementary School.

The devoted mother worked day and night, despite having been diagnosed with Lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease, a year earlier.

When Curtis reached the eighth grade, he began to play football for a familiar group — the Irvine Chargers. He joined Mikey on Irvine High’s varsity football team two years later.

In that time, Curtis grew close to the Filia family.

“When I learned his mother was ill, I let him know that if he ever needed someone to talk to, he could always call me,” Mike said.

During his freshman year of high school in 2012, Evans’ condition worsened. Her son remembers the rashes and blisters that spread on her skin.

On Dec. 28, 2014, Evans died. Curtis was 16.

For the funeral, held a month later in L.A., the family asked mourners to wear white, Mike said.

When Curtis arrived to the church that morning, he stepped out of the car to find his Irvine teammates at the ceremony. All of them were wearing their white football jerseys.

After the loss of his mother, the football player’s GPA dropped to 1.98 and his interest in the sport faltered, Mike said.

“During games, I would still look up at the stands for her but I knew I wouldn’t see her there anymore,” Curtis said.

The teen faced the possibility of moving back to live with family in Watts until the Filias offered him a place in their home.

Seeing the support Irvine High football had given Curtis, Mike knew he needed to stay in Orange County somehow.

“This program has helped provide everything he could need, even an athletic trainer funded by Irvine Public Schools Foundation to work with a knee injury he’s had,” Mike said.

By February, Curtis decided he would stay with the Filias.

He followed the same house rules as Mike and Stacey’s sons Eric, 23; Mikey, 18; and Marc, 14. This included a structured schedule of sports practice, family dinner and then homework time.

He finished his last semester of junior year with straight A’s and a spot on the principal’s honor roll.

Curtis, who will also serve as the team’s captain this year, said the plan will be to attend a junior college after graduation and eventually transfer to a four-year institution.

Mike and Stacey are currently working with social services to become Curtis’ official foster parents.