After shooting in Camden, a coach boxes up a future

Preston Brown packed up a teenager's future this week.

He gathered up the recruiting letters for one of Woodrow Wilson High School's most promising football players and delivered them to the family, along with his condolences.

Brown said Ja'Meer Bullard was a "special talent" on the football field.

But that's hardly the only reason why Brown has been so devastated by Bullard's death - so haunted by the eerie familiarity of the violence, so shocked by the harsh reality of another young life lost on Camden's streets.

"I knew him his whole life," Brown said of Bullard, an 18-year-old who was shot and killed around midnight April 24. "I'm an East Camden kid. He was an East Camden kid.

"I'm hurting bad. I knew his family, watched him grow up, knew he had a chance to be something."

Brown, 29, was a Woodrow Wilson football star, graduating in 2003. He played four seasons for Tulane University and returned to his hometown to coach football, always aware that the job would involve a lot more than Xs and Os.

Brown knew that long before he was named Woodrow Wilson's head coach in February after three seasons as an assistant coach at cross-town rival Camden.

He knew it long before his cell phone rang in the middle of the night last weekend.

But that call - and what good news ever arrives at 3 a.m.? - was another shrill reminder.

"Mike McBride (Brown's coach at Woodrow Wilson) would always say, 'I'll never give up on a kid - ever,' " Brown said. "I didn't always understand what he meant by that. Now it resonates with me.

"Something like this, it makes you realize what's happening out here, why you are working with these kids, trying to get them through some difficult situations."

The news itself was bad enough for Brown: A Woodrow Wilson football player had been shot and killed.

But one of the details stunned him even more: The incident took place on Mechanic Street, near Mt. Ephraim Avenue.

That's the same street where Brown's brother Antwuan was shot and killed in July, 2011.

"Same block," Brown said. "I always get goosebumps every time I ride by Mechanic and Mt. Ephraim. Now this happens on the same block. It's a whole other set of emotions."

Brown also coaches track at Woodrow Wilson. He met with athletes at the school all week, trying to serve as a source of strength and support.

"There's a lot of confusion, a lot of pain," Brown said. "We're all walking around still a little numb. And everybody is different. If I'm dealing with 60 kids, there's 60 different ways of grieving."

Brown believes things have improved on Camden's streets, thanks to the increased presence of officers from the Camden County police force.

But he's not naive. He knows many of Camden's youngsters still are at risk, that danger never is far from those in disadvantaged circumstances.

"I lost a teammate when I was in high school," Brown said. "There's been so many others that we knew when we were growing up whose lives were taken.

"These kids (today), they all know somebody. That's not something that high school kids should be accustomed to.

"Nobody should be used to calls in the middle of the night."

Brown never coached Bullard in high school. He worked with him on 7-on-7 travel teams and at showcases and camps in the city.

But as Woodrow Wilson's new coach, Brown was receiving mail for Bullard on a regular basis this spring from colleges such as Rutgers and Indiana and Oregon. The 5-foot-10, 225-pound Bullard, a linebacker and fullback, had a scholarship offer from Temple.

Brown went to athletic director Will Hickson's office on Thursday and collected the letters. He thought Bullard's family would want them.

Brown took a photo of the letters and posted it on Instagram with these words: "Pain inside my heart to have to deliver these."

Brown said he believes "gain can come from loss" and that Bullard's death will only strengthen his resolve to make difference in his hometown.

"This reminds me why I'll always stay involved," Brown said. "I'll never give up on these kids."

panastasia@phillynews.com

@PhilAnastasia