GRIFFITH | David Alexander is pacing around his house, shades tipped up on his closely cropped hair, frantically trying to figure out why his cell phone won't let him dial out.

He stalks into the kitchen. No luck. He steps outside. Still no luck.

"It's still not working," he says, exasperated, to no one in particular.

The longer he goes without service, the more calls he'll miss. And when you have roughly 500 numbers stored in your phone, the voice mail can collect quickly.

Many of those numbers belong to old high school buddies, guys he used to hang with, party with, drink with.

"He was the social type -- maybe a little too social at times," Derek Hitt said.

MORE: View a detailed audio slideshow of David Alexander.

Hitt remembers the reputation his close friend developed at Griffith. The stereotypical jock. The cocky football player. The troublemaker.

The crowd David ran with only fueled those notions, as did his occasionally overzealous end zone celebrations. And then there was the time, in March of his junior year, he hit a kid in gym class. David was suspended, went to court and wound up with a sentence of community service.

Derek could see his friend going down the wrong path. He noticed when David stopped spending Friday nights at his house, watching "PFR Scoreboard" and hanging out after games, and started going out instead.

Last winter, in the middle of their senior year, Derek finally felt compelled to say something.

"I told him, 'You're messin' up,'" Derek said. "'You keep doing the same things. You keep telling yourself you're going to stop but you're not.'"

Derek knew the Division I schools recruiting David wouldn't wait for him to improve his grades. He also knew David's poor performance in the classroom was mostly for lack of effort.

David had shown he could be a good student when he so desired. Hence the certificate, framed and hung on his living room wall, awarded to him for making the high honor roll at Pierce Middle School as an eighth-grader.

All while living in a hotel in Merrillville.

"I don't even know if I would still be alive if it wasn't for him"

Of the eight places he has called home since moving to Griffith in 1999, David most loathed Knight's Inn. For nearly a year he stayed in Room 337 with his mom, Nancy Williams, and stepdad, sleeping on an air mattress and living in shame.

"I was embarrassed," he said. "I never had people over, never told people where I lived, never told people my phone number."

David hated Knight's Inn (now America's Best Value Inn) more than the Mansards Apartments, those three separate complexes off Ridge Road he inhabited before his mom and stepdad ran out of rent money. Before they could no longer afford to put down a security deposit on another apartment. Before they moved David out of Griffith, away from his friends and school.

He hated it more than the places he would later live -- the one-bedroom joint with the tan brick and brown shutters on Main Street, the red brick complex on Glenwood, and, finally, the house on Arbogast.

He even hated it more than the small yellow house on Jay Street, a place filled with bad memories. There, David says, he witnessed fights between Nancy and the man they were staying with. The man Nancy says abused her, the man David says he once shoved across the room after witnessing him throw hot tea on his mom.

David was too young to do anything when, he says, Nancy's ex-husband shoved her into a glass table. But he remembers it.

It's instances liked these David is referring to when he says: "It's like I'm the man of the house, I gotta keep everything under control. A lot of people don't understand that that stuff takes a toll on me. I'm only 19 years old. That's stuff I shouldn't even have to deal with."

But he does, just as he has dealt with the fact that his father -- the man public records show was in and out of the Connecticut Department of Correction from 1978 to 2002 -- has never attempted to re-establish himself in David's life.

"It doesn't really matter to me if I meet him or not," David said. "It just sucks because he didn't get a chance to be a part of my life. That's just something he's gonna have to deal with."

David is less ambivalent toward his mom. The two always have been close. This is why David cried uncontrollably the night Nancy stormed out of the yellow house on Jay Street, fully intending to throw herself in front of a train.

She didn't go through with it, of course. She couldn't leave David.

"He's my rock," said Nancy, who goes to regular counseling sessions to treat her depression. "I don't even know if I would still be alive if it wasn't for him."

Nancy's older children -- Nicole, Elizabeth and Bryan -- moved out while the family was still living in Florida. Not David. Even in the worst of times, they've had each other.

"That's my mom and I love her and everything," David said. "I didn't want nothing bad to happen to her, so I just figured I'd stick around just to help her out and be there for her."

"Chasing a dream"

As much as David loves his mom, he also wanted to get away. He wanted to start a life for himself. But mostly, he wanted to play Division I football.

Northern Illinois and Eastern Michigan also offered him football scholarships, but Toledo was his first choice.

If only he had made the grades.

His recruiting coordinator at Toledo had to deliver the news. They ended up signing some guy from Ohio instead, some guy who did make the grades.

"That," David said, "was a heartbreaker."

Somewhere in the blue box where he kept all those college recruiting letters, there was one from Saint Joseph's. Division II schools weren't particularly high on David's initial list of college choices. But at this point, he couldn't afford to be choosy.

Despite his grades, the Pumas maintained interest in him for football and track. Saint Joseph's could be his second chance, but first he had to make sure he got there.

David didn't graduate from Griffith last May. His grades weren't great to begin. And then he got suspended again last March, missed a lot of work and couldn't make it up.

And so, much of David's summer was consumed by two tasks: taking two night classes at Merrillville to finish up his high school coursework, and working out with a personal trainer -- paid for by his mom's on-again, off-again boyfriend of four-plus years, Erick Whitten -- to get back into football shape.

Three times a week, David visited Jacob Lange at World Gym in Highland for grueling 70-minute workouts. On one Saturday in July, David showed up wearing a white shirt with clipped off sleeves. Scribbled on the back, in green and yellow marker, was a simple phrase: "chasing a dream."

The dream is to go pro.

"I'm gonna do everything I can to get there," David said.

"There's no quit in him"

During his first few workouts with Lange, David almost always threw up. He'd walk out of the gym, his legs feeling like Jell-O. He'd be sore for days.

But he'd always come back for more.

"There's no quit in him," Lange said. "It's all willpower. It's unusual."

Just like David's ability.

"The last time (I've) seen such a pure, raw athlete was (T.F. South grad) Pierre Thomas," Lange said, "and he plays for the Saints."

Saint Joseph's football coach Lou Esposito noticed that ability as well. On David's recruiting video, he saw a skinny kid with great explosion and toughness. It was enough to convince Esposito to give the kid a chance.

For David, it would be a second chance. Assuming he could get in, get eligible and get caught up.

"We knew there would be some grade issues with him," said Esposito, who recruited David as a wide receiver. "We told him, 'If you can get in, you're gonna have to work your butt off and try to make sure you have good grades and do well socially.' And after that, we can talk about football."

David's last day of summer school was Aug. 7, and then there was some question as to whether he would pass one of his classes after submitting a late paper.

This delayed his arrival at Saint Joseph's. He didn't move into his dorm until Aug. 14 and didn't start practicing in pads until more than two weeks after the Pumas' camp had opened.

Learning a new playbook, catching up on practices he had missed and awaiting the NCAA Clearinghouse's ruling on his eligibility were David's greatest concerns -- until last week.

That's when, Erick says, Saint Joseph's told him and Nancy the remaining $2,000 of David's first-year expenses was due by week's end.

If they couldn't come up with the money by then, David would have to leave Saint Joseph's.

And if that happened, there would be no second chance to live out his hopes and goals.

There would be no second chance to chase his dream.