Yohance Salimu, an All-City defensive lineman at Crenshaw High, had run out of options.

His family had lost its apartment and was living at a homeless shelter far from school. He was taking trains and buses and staying with friends. There was no place to put his clothes, so they were starting to smell.

Crenshaw football Coach Robert Garrett decided it was time to intervene. He offered Salimu six lockers at school.

The catch: Salimu had to memorize six locker combinations. "I'm really good with numbers," he said.

Salimu stored his dirty clothes in two of the lockers. Four others contained his clean clothes. And despite all his other duties involving coaching and teaching, Garrett would take home a bag full of Salimu's dirty clothes and do the player's laundry.

When graduation day came in June 2011, Salimu had a 3.8 grade-point average and was accepted to the Air Force Academy.

"I'm thankful for my teachers pushing me above and beyond, and one of them was Coach Garrett," he said.

At a time of budget cuts, furlough days, student defections to private schools and growing unease about what the future might bring, there are coaches in the sprawling Los Angeles Unified School District such as Garrett who refuse to be deterred.

"You never know who you're getting through to," said another of them, Dorsey football Coach Paul Knox. "You never know who you're going to touch."

Garrett, Knox and Mike Walsh of San Pedro have spent 22 years or longer teaching and coaching football at the same school, making them the longest-tenured football coaches in LAUSD.

Read more here:
City Section football coaches are in this for life