One man's mission to reunite fathers and kids

Tony Pierce, a football coach, organized Fathers in Touch to help absentee dads reconnect with their children.

By Kelly Starling Lyons | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

from the April 13, 2007 edition

Page 1 of 4

As a veteran college-football coach, Tony Pierce was used to figuring out problems. But he faced a new challenge when one player, Ronald "Rock" Dillon, told him he was aching because his dad wasn't around. Mr. Pierce made a life-changing decision: He gave Mr. Dillon's father a call.

"I knew I couldn't let him hear my anger and frustration," says Pierce, assistant head football coach and defensive coordinator for Alabama State University in Montgomery. "So I just said, 'Your son seems really down because he hasn't seen you in a while.' "

The young man's father, Ronald Stephenson, says hearing those words went deep. Mr. Stephenson, who had been in and out of prison, knew he had made mistakes. "It had gotten to the point where I almost gave up" contacting Rock, he says.

Right then, Stephenson made a commitment to be a better dad. That call changed Pierce, too. He realized those without devoted fathers didn't need mentors or advice. They needed their dads.

And so in 2003, Fathers in Touch was born – Pierce's organization aimed at reconnecting dads with their children of all ages. It's part of a growing movement to help more fathers be there – physically and emotionally – for their kids.

Pierce, himself a husband and father of three, has reunited more than two dozen dads with their children.

"Talking to Coach helped me give [my dad] a chance," says Dillon, a former player for the Charleston Sand Sharks arena football team who now talks to his father a few times a week. "I guess I was so mad because I loved him so much."

Of course, there are many good dads, Pierce notes. But the fatherhood issue he and others are tackling has grown dire. In 1960, 17 percent of children lived apart from their biological dads at any one time, says David Popenoe, author of "Life Without Father." Today, that rate has doubled, he says.

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For further information:
•	coachtonypierceoutreach.org Fathers in Touch
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