Antrel Rolle has seen it often — though high school and college and right there inside the Giants locker room. It is more the norm and not the exception, and Rolle knows he is blessed not to be part of this statistical epidemic, this societal breakdown.
There are so many players, young athletes, growing up without a positive male presence in their lives, without a father. Rolle, the youngest of Armelia and Al’s three children, grew up in a family jokingly — and perhaps jealously — likened to the Huxtables of “The Cosby Show” fame. Antrel sees how wayward friends and teammates can veer off course with no father on the scene to provide all that the very best of them do on a daily basis.
“I think there’s no better person to teach you how to be a man than a man himself,’’ Rolle told The Post. “If you don’t have that, it can be rough for you. I can’t speak from personal experience, but I have a lot of friends, I’ve walked in other people’s shoes at times and just try to understand their point of view and the ways of their upbringing because they haven’t had a male figure.
“There are certain things they would do I would never do, and there are certain ways they think I would never think, just because I did have that positive male influence and role model in my life. It definitely plays a huge part in how they carry themselves, how they may act, how they may treat women, just their attitudes, how some maybe can’t control themselves and just their whole demeanor. When you have a male role model in your life, it’s easy to follow.’’
In this way, Antrel Rolle — one of the great leaders in Giants history — is a follower and damn proud of it. Of course, this weekend he is back home in Homestead, Fla., to celebrate Father’s Day, but the festivities will be understated because, as he puts it, “My dad’s very chill. He has Father’s Day every day, just being able to be with his family and have all of us amongst each other in the same room and relaxing and watching sports or TV or a movie. That’s his thing.’’
In a world with too many Absent Fathers, Al Rolle was determined to be a Present Father. He attended school plays, watched Antrel sing in the chorus, was at every game and, he says, almost every practice, keeping his beeper and police radio nearby in case he had to rush off on an assignment. Every generation wants to do better for the next. Al Rolle grew up in a family of 10 children, and his father worked three jobs, leaving no time to watch Al excel in his various sports.
“Either feed me or watch me play. … He wanted to make sure we ate,’’ Al Rolle said.
Al Rolle’s dad “worked 40 years and never missed a day of work,” and attendance was not optional in the Rolle household. In 12 years, Antrel missed two days of school when, in third grade, he ripped a good deal of skin off the right side of his face in a bicycle fall. His older sister Alexia missed one day in her school career, and his older brother Antuan didn’t miss any. In 34 years on the police force, Al Rolle called in sick three times, when he experienced a severe headache while studying for the sergeant’s exam in 1983. He aced the exam and hasn’t missed a day since.
Is it any wonder Antrel with the Giants played through two partially torn shoulder labrums or refused to miss a minute despite crushing his knee into a television camera?
Antrel did not live in the lap of luxury, but his upbringing was privileged compared with the way his father grew up. There was a high school right down the road in Homestead, but Al Rolle wasn’t welcome there because he is African-American, so he had to trek nine miles away, every day, for school. Al Rolle says as an athlete he was “probably a little better’’ than Antrel. You name it, Al did it exceedingly well, especially the way no one could lay a glove on him at running back.
There simply was no money for college, and he got drafted into the Army in 1970 during the Vietnam War. Al was shipped to Germany, saw plenty of his friends make it back from Vietnam in body bags. When he left the military he used his GI Bill and his $400 in savings to build a house, which became a reality in 1979.
(The four-bedroom house had to be replaced after being destroyed on Aug. 24, 1992, by Hurricane Andrew, an event Al says still traumatizes Antrel, who as a 9-year old watched as the roof and most of the four walls were blown away).
Al, after leaving the military, was making $21 a day as a school security guard. He later received his two-year associates degree in criminal justice at Miami-Dade Community College and joined the police force. In 1998 he defied the odds and became the first African-American police chief in Homestead’s history.
Al Rolle, 63, has the look of a younger man and the feel and fitness of a former athlete. He’s been married to Armelia for 35 years, and the partnership is something their youngest son looks upon with awe, calling it “dynamic.’’
Armelia and Al Rolle ran a tight household. There was no smoking or drinking. Antrel got a job as a bag boy at the local Winn Dixie and was raised in a racially mixed neighborhood.
“He didn’t grow up in an area that was all black, he grew up in an area where he had Hispanics and whites and maybe one, two blacks in the whole area,’’ Al Rolle said. “So he grew up in a diversified community. He saw how we operated and how we treated our neighbors. He knew that’s the way you have to be in society.’’
Armelia Rolle, a career counselor at the high school, had a firm hold on the kids’ academic life. Al made sure they stayed on the right side of the law. Antrel was a smart kid, graduated high school with a 3.8 grade-point average and liked to have fun, sometimes a bit to too much. He would grab a kid in the hallway and stuff him into a garbage can, close the lid and a call would be made to Antrel’s parents.
“Fathers have to deal with kids that fight and a weapon in school or they got drugs,’’ Al said. “I never had none of that.’’
Armelia was more the disciplinarian, and Antrel recalls Al was more “the one who was whispering,’’ getting his point across without raising his voice.
“The one thing I respect about my father more than anything is he never really worried about himself too much,’’ Antrel said. “It was always, ‘Antrel, take care of your mama, make sure your Mama’s good, make sure your mama smiles, make sure your mama’s happy.’ As a man that’s something you have to admire, being that he put my mom first before anything else.’’
In his time on patrol, as a detective and now as police chief, Al Rolle sees so many young boys without fathers, so much crime, and he knows the two are interconnected.
“Even though some of ’em have strong mothers, you still need a father figure in these kids’ lives,’’ Al said. “A lot of times, even though the woman is there, she cannot relate to the boys like a father can. She doesn’t have that bass in her voice, you know what I mean? Sometimes you got to have that bass in your voice to make them understand you’re serious. Having two parents, it can be a balance between making or breaking a kid.’’
The efforts of Armelia and Al are evidenced in their handiwork. Alexia recently received her doctorate in educational leadership and Antuan, like his dad, is a police officer. Antrel not only is a star safety for the Giants, but he also is a defensive captain.
The Rolles have attended every game, home and away, Antrel has played in his nine-year NFL career. The only game they missed during his college days at Miami was the week after the 9/11 terrorist bombings. Whether it is in Dallas or Green Bay or Seattle, wherever the Giants are, they stay at the Giants team hotel, and the morning of the game Antrel will knock on his parents’ door and go over the defensive playbook, watch video — a final lesson before hitting the field.
Armelia takes care of Antrel’s finances. Al takes care of almost everything else, tending to Antrel’s house in Florida — about a half mile from the one he grew up in, where his parents still reside — and his cars. Al replaces the air conditioner filter when it’s packed with dust. Armelia, when visiting Antrel’s New Jersey apartment overlooking the Hudson River, makes a beeline for the kitchen, tossing out the old food and replacing it with fresh stuff from the grocery store. Al puts a flashlight in Antrel’s car, makes sure there’s a jack in the trunk in case there’s ever a flat tire.
“I’m kind of like the butler, you know?’’ Al said with a laugh. “My wife, we call ourselves the maid and the butler because he don’t have to do anything.’’
Antrel chuckles at this.
“I’m extremely blessed and spoiled in the right places,’’ he said.
When Antrel, the No. 8 overall pick of the Cardinals in the 2005 NFL Draft, signed his rookie deal (six years, $43 million), those around Al Rolle assumed he would retire from the force. Antrel “wanted to give us the world,’’ Al said, but the father would not hear of it.
“I don’t have a job, I have a career,’’ Al said. “There’s a difference. I don’t need my son’s money. I never asked him for anything. He knows it, so all we do is take his money and put it away for him and his kids and his grandkids.’’
Armelia and Al have three grandchildren, but Antrel, 31, is not married, has no kids and no pressure (for now) to provide any grandkids to his parents. Al figures Rolle’s football career is so all-consuming that a family can come after the playing days are over.
“He watched everything I’ve done,’’ Al said. “He would be an awesome father because he knows what I’ve done as a dad.’’
Antrel is not ready yet, but when he is, he is sure he’s had the perfect Rolle model.
“If there’s one thing I’ve wanted to be in this world more than a football player, it’s a father,’’ he said. “I see the way my dad looks at my mother and myself and my sister, especially. I see the way my brother is with his sons. It’s only right to carry out the tradition and keep building on the foundation. I had an outstanding upbringing with a male role model, my father, it should be easy to me to follow suit. If I can be half the man he was to me I’ll do a pretty damn good job.
“If I can be half the man he is, I’ll be awesome.’’