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The boys jumped out the front door and went right down 35th Street toward the fun. On their feet, they could cover the half mile or so in 10 minutes, maybe less, by cutting through some apartments and across 38th. But they were almost never on their feet.
Riding BMX bicycles was everything in small towns like this during the 1980s — wheelies, racing, seeing who could land the longest jump. And on their bikes, the boys could take the trails and cut down their trip by a few minutes, leaving more time for tricks. This is Harold Park, known to area kids as Bicycle Park.
The grass is a little too long, and a rusty muffler lies across the park’s entrance, but Will Shields and Adrian Lunsford came here dang near every day. Shields had his first football practice in this park as a boy. The sport would end up making Shields rich and famous, a career that will be honored with his induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend.
But back then, he and Lunsford were just two kids trying to stick a backflip on their bikes.
Mellinger: Will Shields, from Lawton to Canton
Will Shields grew up in a small, rough, and loving town in Oklahoma that helped turn him into one of sports' great philanthropists. Video by Sam Mellinger/smellinger@kcstar.com
“Hey,” Shields said one day, “you want to go to the store and get some chips and a soda?”
“I don’t have any money,” Lunsford said.
“I didn’t ask you if you had any money,” Shields responded. “I asked if you wanted to get some chips and a soda.”
Now a grown man, Lunsford laughs when he tells the story. This is the friend he’ll present at the induction ceremony in Canton, Ohio, on Saturday. Lunsford has a thousand stories like this. Most center around things more important than a bag of chips. Shields once leaned out of a moving truck, for instance, risking his own fall because he saw a friend losing his balance.
There is a sweet charm to the way each man talks of this place, one that focuses on the happy part of a town with two personalities.
Shields originally wanted his kids to present him, but the rules say it can only be one person, and Shields’ children are too competitive to pick just one. For those who know Shields well, though, Lunsford will highlight the same message his kids would have.
Two of the four kids that Shields thinks of as his aren’t his blood. Shields has always been about taking care of others, shared DNA or not, and Lunsford’s history in Lawton makes him a terrific messenger.
Lawton — people here often call it LA, for Lawton America — can be a rough place. When Shields was a boy, his town became temporarily famous for being announced by Johnny Carson as having the country’s highest per capita crime rate. Drugs and violence and gangs aren’t just for big cities.
Lawton High School had the highest rate of free or reduced lunch among the town’s three high schools. Locals knew it as the poor school. But Shields was lucky. Two loving and strong parents. An older brother who taught him to love football and an older sister who taught him to love music.
Others weren’t so fortunate. Shields doesn’t talk about this much, but the difference stuck with him. The experience helped create one of the great philanthropists in sports. This weekend in Canton, he will be honored as one of the best offensive lineman to ever play the game, but back in Lawton, people talk more about the man who grew up to do the work of a saint.
Shields’ foundation has helped thousands of battered women. For nearly two decades, he has sung and handed out gifts to kids at a Kansas City mental health facility. More kids than anyone can count are attending or have graduated from college on Shields’ empathy.
There is not enough space in this newspaper to detail every way he has changed lives, and all of it, in one way or another, started here in Lawton.
“That’s where I was meant to be growing up,” Shields said.
Lawton is a military town. It’s often referred to as the Lawton-Fort Sill community, and the military presence there is enough that most everyone who isn’t enlisted knows someone who is.
The rest of the town is blue collar — middle class or below. The biggest employers have always been the military, the school system and factories — including Haggar, a clothing company where Shields’ mom worked and which makes the gold jackets for Pro Football Hall of Famers.
The size and demographics haven’t changed much since Shields lived in Lawton. Every now and then, a developer will come in with the idea of building up a downtown business district, but it never sticks.
“We don’t have a skyline,” Shields said. “We have a mall. That’s it. And even the mall is probably half full, half empty.”
Shields grew up in a military family. His father was stationed in Germany for three years when Shields was growing up, the type of assignment that often means an entire family moves. But on their father’s decision, Shields and his siblings stayed in Lawton, with their mother.
Maybe it was simpler that way. Maybe stability was the important thing. Maybe Lawton was the kind of place that could complement the structure of home. Shields isn’t sure — he has never asked why they stayed behind.
Shields has always been different. Even back then, he was the one other kids would tell their parents they were with to soothe concerns. And there was plenty to be concerned about. As one childhood friend put it, “We (weren’t) all like Will.”
Some of the boys and girls that Shields grew up with fell behind, lost in the sad cliché of poorer places across the country. But a lot of those kids made it too, perhaps more so than they would have from similar backgrounds in other places.
You see, there are two very different sides of Lawton: the crime that Carson made famous on “The Tonight Show,” but also the structure and love with which Shields grew up.
Shields had friends on both sides of the divide. He also had a personal look at a bridge from danger to compassion, and a childhood that showed him the value of looking out for one another.
Shields is best known as a former football star, the 12-time Pro Bowler who made 231 consecutive starts for the Chiefs. But his life outside football — the stuff that made him just the third offensive lineman to win the NFL’s Man of the Year Award — is also well known.
“I saw so many people helping so many people,” he said of Lawton. “That leaves an impression on you.”
The specifics are harder to uncover, keeping vague the story of how one of sports’ great philanthropists came out of this stark dichotomy of a small town.
Shields will speak about this in generalities but won’t budge when pushed for details. Go ahead, ask. A name. A memory. Anything.
“I don’t know if they want that,” Shields said, smiling. “But if you go down there and you talk to Charlotte, I’m pretty sure you’ll get an idea what I’m talking about.”
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