![]() He had played virtually no football before high school but tried it at Montini, liked it and quickly impressed coaches with his speed and power. He has become a solid student with grades and an ACT score good enough to meet NCAA freshman eligibility requirements.ĭex had always considered himself as a basketball player, and he was a full-time varsity starter by his sophomore year. They planned at first to enroll him at Naperville Central, their local public high school and Kris' alma mater, but Dex wound up at Montini because the school's smaller class sizes seemed a better academic fit.ĭex struggled at first academically but adjusted well to Montini and improved his grades once Dan and Kris taught him that homework was more important than TV. "I wasn't sure what would happen."ĭan and Kris became his legal guardians that Aug. "It was more overwhelming than anything," he said of that hopeless feeling. He likens the gestures to being tossed a life preserver because he believed his dream of using a college basketball scholarship to escape his life in Decatur was fading away. Their summer school offer had surprised Dex, and this new proposal only deepened his feelings of gratitude. "In the right environment he could do well. ![]() "When we asked him to live with us it was because of the kind of kid he was. "I told Dex that when I met him I pretty much pulled his name from a hat," Dan said. It was a decision, Kris said, that involved "heavy-duty" conversations, for she was pregnant with their first child, so their lives already faced a huge change. He was suspended a couple of times, and his grades stunk, so it was no shock in spring 2004 when Dex learned he would have to repeat 8th grade at an alternative school.ĭan and Kris were distraught at the news and offered to enroll Dex in summer school near their Bolingbrook home in hopes a better environment would help him shore up his grades and start high school on time.ĭex thrived that summer, and Dan and Kris suggested he remain with them and enter high school here. He began to skip school, get into fights there, goof off in class and talk back to teachers. Late that summer, though, he changed schools and started hanging around the wrong kids. "He hadn't had a lot of time just to be a kid, just to be happy."ĭex occasionally would visit Peters and his wife, Kris, including the summer before 8th grade, when he brought along two friends and attended a basketball camp. "Dex is a great kid," said Peters, who was married a few months after leaving Decatur.
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