Family welcomes Norfolk Christian player who faced tough odds

NORFOLK

Courtnye Wynn's stomach rumbled, the way it often does before meals for boys that eventually grow to be 6 feet 6 and 240 pounds.

It was a few hours until dinner in his new home. Well, it wasn't his home yet.

It was still Shannon and Alison's home. And Jacob's, Eli's and Michaela's. But it wasn't really Wynn's home yet, even though he was living there and everyone told him it was.

The food in the fridge wasn't his, either, and that's why he tried to ignore his growling stomach.

Reluctantly, as the clock dragged on, Wynn decided something had to be done. Slowly, he walked toward Alison Messick, whose family had taken him in days earlier.

"Can I get something to eat?" he asked.

"Sure," Alison said. "Why are you asking?"

For a teenager who'd been sent away from the dangers of inner-city Baltimore at 11 by his mother, who'd been sent away from his grandmother's house after his sophomore year, and was in danger of being booted from Norfolk Christian High School, Wynn finally had found a home in Chesapeake.

"I remember thinking, 'Who is this kid that's just been sitting there?' " Alison said, recalling that evening nearly two years ago. "And how many nights has he sat there hungry?"

For Wynn, family arrived in two former Marines - Shannon and Alison Messick - their two biological children and an adopted son from Japan.

Wynn, 18, quickly went from calling Alison "Mrs. A" to "Mom A" to "Mom." He dropped "Dad" on Shannon about six months ago, a moment he admits was awkward. Wynn spent three weeks at summer camp and came back calling Jacob "brother."

"It's like the movie 'The Blind Side,' " Shannon said. "But we're not millionaires."

The arrangement has set the stage for Wednesday, when Wynn, a star defensive end with the Norfolk Christian football team, will sign a national letter of intent to play at the University of Virginia.

"Every day," Wynn said, "I think of where I would be otherwise."

It was Shannon, an assistant football coach at Norfolk Christian, who brought Wynn into the family.

Wynn was attending Norfolk Christian through a program that provided financial assistance for disadvantaged students. Shannon noticed him playing volleyball and teased him about not trying a tougher sport at his size.

Shannon also noticed Wynn, who considered himself primarily a basketball player, lingering late after school, sometimes after dark, and began offering rides home to his grandmother's in Portsmouth.

One night, on the way there, Shannon stopped at a Wendy's. He shared the story of his childhood. Wynn devoured a Triple Baconator and a large Hi-C with no ice, the way he always gets his drinks, and listened.

"You know how men are," Shannon said. "You win them over with food."

Shannon recounted how - without much money - his family took in classmates for their junior and senior years, took them out of difficult family situations and provided them a home.

Wynn liked Shannon from the start because he reminded him of Byron Joyce, the man he calls his godfather and who runs a recreation center and gives him haircuts.

Shannon can't say specifically what it was about Wynn he liked, but thinks maybe it was the way he shot back when Shannon called volleyball a "sissy" sport.

Wynn came out for the football team a year later, as a sophomore. The game, and the time they spent together, bonded Shannon and Courtnye.

Shannon bought him a cellphone and told him to call if he ever needed a ride home. The calls became more and more frequent, like those

nights when Shannon was home and the phone would ring at 9.

He and Alison would sit in bed at night, with Shannon going on and on about Wynn.

"I don't know what it was, but I was going home at night going, 'Man, this kid. Man, this kid. Man, I wish there was something I could do for this kid,' " Shannon said.

When arguments with his grandmother led them to conclude that the arrangement wasn't working, Wynn asked Shannon if he could come live with him after his sophomore year.

Shannon opened the door to the possibility, but it was Eli who provided an official stamp on the move.

A popular 10-year-old, Eli was giving friends the grand tour of his home one night, when he arrived on the third floor. That's where Jacob and Courtnye share a bedroom, a space Shannon and Alison call the "man cave," and which they try desperately to avoid because of the clutter.

"And this," Eli proudly declared, "is my new brother's room."

Wynn credits all the adults along his journey.

His mom, he said, was looking out for him when she sent him from Baltimore. His grandmother took him in and kept him from going to an all-boys' boarding school.

Wynn was 11 when his mom sent him from Baltimore. She was a single parent, working 16 hours a day, and Wynn took advantage of it. She was home infrequently, and so was he. He hung out with friends, who would later be jailed or killed.

He never found serious trouble, but there were several occasions, he said, when he probably should have been sent home from school. He wasn't, he said, because he was a budding basketball star.

He was, however, once suspended after being accused of stealing a bike.

"The one time I was kicked out, I was falsely accused," Wynn said.

His paternal grandmother stepped in and offered him a home in Portsmouth.

She set rules, but Wynn said she was too old-school for his taste.

"Generational issues," he called their differences.

They argued about him wanting to hang out with friends and listen to loud music. He was a smart kid, she was told, so when he brought home a C one semester, she made him sit out a long stretch of basketball games, a punishment Wynn found excessive.

As they argued more, Wynn became more angry in school. His sullen attitude struck teachers as disrespectful. His temper occasionally resulted in issues with classmates. More than anything, though, Wynn, just looked angry.

"We didn't think he wanted to be here," said Jane Duffey, Norfolk Christian's head of school. "He needed a lot of hands-on attention. He was a lot of work. We gave him a lot of what we call grace and understanding, probably a little more than some might have gotten."

As the situation with his grandmother deteriorated, Wynn was told he'd have to go back to Baltimore.

"He was worried what would happen to him if he went back," Norfolk Christian football coach Heath Gibbs said. "He was only a sophomore, so he didn't have scholarship offers, he wasn't sure he'd do the work to stay in school."

Wynn turned to Shannon, asking if the coach would be willing to take him in.

"He's actually a teddy bear," said Angie de Mik, a guidance counselor and Norfolk Christian's director of academic support. "He's actually said to me that no one loves him, that the only reason people love him is because he's going pro.

"The Messicks give him that love that he needs. Given what he's been through, how no one seemed to want him, his resiliency has been remarkable."

At first, the Messicks enrolled him in counseling, working through the trust issues that often accompany a child who has grown up in multiple homes.

They tried to show Wynn that punishment wouldn't lead to banishment, that he was as permanent as any member of the family.

Early on, Alison spent three days at the school discussing behavior expectations.

The issues the family deals with are smaller now. There's the bedroom that Alison calls a pigpen, Wynn's struggles to get up in the morning and his penchant for tardiness.

Alison still thinks he can do better than Bs and Cs. Occasionally, she gets a call about a missed assignment.

"He's the one that deserves all the credit," Alison said. "We provided some structure, but there was this moment in our house, where he spread his arms. He has this huge wingspan, and he said, 'I just needed some room.' "

For Wynn, it's normal family stuff. For the Messicks, it's family as they always envisioned it.

Wynn likes to egg on Eli, taking videos of him when he's not listening to his parents. Eli and Michaela, 7, treated Wynn's entry to the family like they would a new baby. After jumping off the school bus, they will run toward him and wrap themselves around his legs.

Jacob, 16, goes to him for advice on girls and was perfectly fine with sharing a room.

Shannon and Alison had always dreamed of having four children, but she suffered complications after the birth of Michaela, making a third pregnancy too dangerous.

Then along came Wynn to complete the family.

And to find a family of his own.

"The deal when he came here was not that he'd be living with us, but that he'd be part of our family," Alison said. "I told him, 'You're the fourth child we always wanted.' "

Chris Carlson, 757-446-2367, chris.carlson@pilotonline.com