What is sad about this story is Roddy White tried to set his cousin on the right path when it became obvious that Ali was headed down a path that would lead him to jail or worse.
It was condemnable by Roddy White, to try to help this young man, but in the end Ali White decided that being a criminal was going to be his chosen profession.
Ali White, 21, and two other men, are charged with storming into a Lawrenceville home, physically assaulting a man and woman, and stealing some items, including a watch, according to a police report obtained by the Gwinnett Daily Post.
Police say four men in ski masks — one carrying a baseball bat, another carrying a handgun — barged into the basement of a home on May 2 while a woman and her boyfriend were relaxing and playing a video game. One accused robber still has not been apprehended.
One intruder struck the woman, while another pistol-whipped the man, causing him lacerations. One of the victims was apparently a former classmate of Ali White’s and the two gave police his name, saying they recognized the former nose tackle’s voice and size.
In 2007, Roddy White, a former first-round draft pick, brought his 15-year-old brother, Tyler, and cousin Ali, then 17, from Charleston, S.C., to Atlanta, “after their lives began to wander,” according to a 2008 story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The two teens lived with White, who rose each morning at 7 a.m. to fix breakfast for them and send them off to school.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that athletes try to help a lot of family and friends in similar situations. When you become a multimillionaire a lot of people have their hands out or you feel the responsibility of trying to set people straight .
Roddy White tried to teach his cousin some discipline and keep him in school, it is sad that it appears he has failed, not for a lack of trying, but because his cousin didn’t want to accept the better life.
*UPDATE*
To say White wasn’t pleased with the story would be an understatement.
“Can the atlanta journal constitution not call my phone anymore about stuff tht has nothing to do with me if its not football related don’t call my #!@%*# phone” White wrote on Twitter Monday. “Better yet don’t even associate me with criminal activities I aint done nothing u f***ing a**holes.”