A mother’s pain, a son’s promise: How Allen Hurns will honor his and all single moms.
Just a few miles from Hard Rock Stadium stands Carol City High School, the home of more than a dozen past and present NFL players, including Dolphins receiver Allen Hurns.
And just a few miles from that property was the stretch of road where Hurns’ mother Erica Wilson, a little more than a decade ago, briefly used her car as her home.
Wilson, a young single mom, tried desperately to keep a roof over her kids’ heads. She worked multiple jobs, including the overnight shift at Wal-Mart, which she “literally hated.”
But there was never enough money. The bills piled up. So did the eviction notices. Hurns’ dad wasn’t much in the picture — he was in prison for the first six years of his son’s life — so Wilson had very little help.
Rock bottom came Hurns’ sophomore year at Carol City, when Wilson couldn’t find a new place to live before getting booted from her home. So she sent her children to stay with family, and for two nights, Wilson spent the night in her vehicle.
“I wouldn’t let my kids do that,” Wilson told the Miami Herald this week. “I couldn’t let Allen and his brother. We would ride around all day long until it was time for bed. It didn’t last long, but I did it.”
All these years later, Wilson lives mortgage-free in the Jacksonville home Hurns bought her after making his fortune in the NFL.
Helping his mother out of poverty was goal No. 1 for Hurns, who played his college ball at the University of Miami.
Goal No. 2 was helping other moms in the same position.
That’s why he and Wilson started 88 Blessings, “a foundation that offers advice, resources and a support system to single parents.”
The nonprofit aims to “build a community that offers advice, resources, and a support system to refocus their energy, solve their financial problems, or grow a business to provide for their families.”
Hurns on Sunday will try to shine a light on that foundation with his feet. The Dolphins will wear custom shoes as part of the league’s My Cause My Cleats initiative, which encourages players to showcase charitable causes important to them.
And there’s no cause more important to Hurns than helping mothers battling to keep their families afloat. Their struggle is his struggle.
“Everything I try to do in the community, I try to make it something I can relate to,” said Hurns, whose cleats will also pay tribute to the 17 people murdered in the Stoneman Douglas shooting. “I grew up less fortunate, in tough neighborhoods, things like that. What these families are going through, was similar to me and my family and my mom. Just give them hope. Of course, everyday isn’t all good, but we don’t have the same troubles that we had before.”
Added Hurns’ mom: “He has to pay it forward.”
He intends to do just that. Resources aren’t a problem. Hurns has made nearly $26 million in his NFL career, and recently signed a contract extension through 2021.
His success on the field has allowed his mom to take a much-deserved early retirement.
Wilson has lived a hard, heartbreaking life. She was raped at age 10, as she tells in her autobiography, “It Had 2 Happen.”
“I’m OK now,” she told the Herald. “The kids just found out two and a half years ago. I was going through some things. I’m better now that I’m taking counseling now.”
Wilson added: “There was a gang rape. It was five guys that was there and the actual one that did it, I saw at church 20-something years later. And I confronted him. That’s why we’re so passionate about the organization. I tell my stories to the ladies. So many ladies are coming out, saying, ‘That happened to me.’ You can counsel them, tell them how to get through it.”
Wilson was very young when she got pregnant with Hurns’ older brother. The family grew quickly. The resources to support that family shrunk. They moved all over — Miramar, Hollywood and Miami Gardens. Seeing the eviction notices on the door hit Hurns the hardest.
“As a kid, you didn’t understand,” Hurns said. “As a kid, for holidays and things like that, you want the latest shoes and lots of gifts. Once I was older, I started to understand we were struggling. I started to ask for less because your parents don’t have it like that. It was probably tough on my mom, asking for stuff, knowing she couldn’t provide.”
Wilson, even with little money and a hectic work schedule, remained a diligent mom. Grades were very important in her home. So was getting her kids inside before dark.
Street trouble and temptation were everywhere, Hurns recalls, but football and academics helped keep him on the right path. He desperately wanted to play for UM, and as a three-star recruit, earned a scholarship offer from the Huricanes in November of his senior year.
That was his springboard to pro football, with stops in Jacksonville and Dallas before signing with his hometown team during the summer. He’s a starter now, thanks in part to injuries and trades, but also due to merit.
His Dolphins coaches love his talent and versatility. But more than anything, they love his toughness. Hurns has been playing through ankle and knee issues for much of this season.
But whenever he feels sore or sorry for himself, perspective quickly snaps him out of it.
“The way she never complained, it shaped me into who I am today,” Hurns said. “You never see me complaining. Even when I went through things like injuries, it never took over mentally because I had been through worse.”
For more information on Hurns’ foundation, visit 88blessings.org.
This story was originally published December 20, 2019 at 12:45 PM.
