November 26, 2019
By KEITH RYAN CARTWRIGHT
Rutherford County Schools
One is nine years old and the other is 18.
One is in fifth grade and the other is a senior in high school.
Last month, a high five led to a meaningful handshake, a friendly smile and a few words of encouragement that ultimately changed the lives of not one, but two Rutherford County students.
Xavier Jones attends Smyrna Elementary, while Mikel Hartfield will graduate from Smyrna High in May.
Hartfield, a running back for the Bulldogs, was at the elementary school with several teammates for the weekly High Five Friday program that is overseen by Smyrna Elementary’s RTI coach Kelly Garner.
“Xavier had just had some struggles this year and I thought that would be so great for him to be able to connect with Mikel,” Garner said. “I knew he needed someone to mentor him and I knew he liked football. He had talked about it in class one day.”
Hartfield had to be standing next to Garner as the players greeted all the students with high fives that morning.
When the two introduced themselves, Garner asked Hartfield what position he played. He said running back. She beamed.
Jones had written a paper about wanting to be a running back.
Garner told Hartfield there was particular student, Xavier Jones, she wanted him to meet. When Jones arrived, the first player to high five him was Hartfield.
“He was mad about something,” Hartfield recalled. “I shook his hand and stuff, and I told him to cheer up. I just told him, like, put a smile on his face.”
I got to take a picture with him and high five him,” Jones said. “Me and him have a lot in common. We both like football and we both like being a running back. I used to be the quarterback and then they switched me to a running back.”
Each week, Garner arranges for community members — churches, civic organizations, local businesses and high school and college sports teams — to greet students on Friday mornings with high fives to get student excited.
“We encourage them,” Garner said. “They get so excited when they pull up to see someone there to give them a high five and say, ‘Welcome to school. Have a good day.’”
As impactful as it was to have ROTC students there for High Five Friday in honor of Veterans Day, the bond between Hartfield and Jones is like no other.
In fact, a few weeks later, Garner arranged for Hartfield to have lunch with Jones.
The two sat together and talked about football and school.
“It felt very exciting,” Jones said. “He brought me some stickers and a jersey.”
Hartfield is coming back again between now and Christmas break, Jones said, “I’m going to tell him that I’m doing good in math and stuff like that.”
Garner took a photo of them the first time they met on High Five Friday. When he’s not carrying it with him his backpack, Jones said it’s hanging above his bedroom door to keep it from getting lost or ruined.
He hopes to one day play football with Hartfield.
As important as this has been for Jones, it’s been equally impactful for Hartfield.
“I kind of saw myself when I was in elementary school,” said Hartfield, who relocated from Jackson, Tennessee, to Smyrna in seventh grade. “I was mad all the time and I just needed somebody to pick me up and lift me up.”
Garner said that Hartfield “immediately got a text message from his mother.”
“I’m so proud of you,” she wrote
His family, including his grandmother Deborah Turner, whom he lived with in Jackson, saw Hartfield’s willingness to return to the elementary school as a choice to be nice. They saw it as an opportunity for their son and grandson to make a good decision.
They’re proud of him.
And they told him so.
In turn, as Hartfield awaits word on whether he’ll be offered a scholarship to play college football somewhere or whether he’ll spend his first two years at Motlow State before transferring to the University of Memphis, witnessed the power of being nice.
It’s an experience that he will carry with him as an adult.
“This is my first time doing something like this,” Hartfield said. “I was surprised and when Ms. (Sherri) Southerland, (principal at Smyrna High) showed me the picture of us and told me she wanted me to go have lunch with him, I was just surprised that he wanted me to come back. I was just helping and then, I guess, he loved it.”
Hartfield added, “I was just doing good for people and looking out for him.”
“I think Mikel sees that he can make an impact on a child,” Garner concluded.
PHOTOS PROVIDED