Trending
STEUBENVILLE -- Chevy McGee has plans -- big plans, the kind that involve graduating from high school, going to college, playing football and pursuing a degree.
Those are lofty ambitions for a kid who, in his middle school years, didn’t think it was in the cards for him.
“I was doing some bad things in middle school,” he said. “I wasn’t paying attention, I was getting bad grades. I made some mistakes in my life, mistakes I regret still to this day, but I got past it ... I see where I am now.”
Back then he would go to the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center in his free time to hang out with friends. It’s where he met Henry Fleming, the Harding Middle School teacher and assistant coach who does double duty working after practice, evenings and weekends mentoring young people at downtown center.
The future of the work done by Fleming, who holds the title of program director in the recreation department, could be in doubt. His work hours at the center were the subject of discussion during last Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
“He inspired me to play football,” McGee said. “He put me through everything. He saw potential in me and asked me if I wanted to play -- I said yes. I thought I couldn’t play, I thought I could never play for a big team like Big Red, but he saw potential in me, he worked with me and trained me. I wouldn’t be here without him.”
Now 17, McGee is a defensive starter at linebacker on the Steubenville Big Red football team and goes in at running back on the offense.
“If I didn’t have Henry, I’m not going to say I’d be a bad person,” he said. “But I’d still be in the middle of some of the things I was doing. He made sure I had a ride home. He gave me money for food when I didn’t have any -- when I told him we didn’t have food in the house he took me to the store, told me to pick whatever we needed. He helped a lot.”
Fleming, he said, “is the only person who actually looked out for me, looked out for my family,” pointing out that he’s done that for a lot of kids over the years.
“If anybody needs something, all they have to do is ask and he’s there for them,” he said. “He’s made me a better version of (myself). He definitely taught me a lot of things about sports, and life.”
McGee isn’t the only one to sing Fleming’s praises.
Michael Brown, a sophomore at the high school, was in fifth or sixth grade when his mother brought him and several of his siblings to Steubenville. New in town, he was drifting into the wrong crowd.
“I missed school a lot, but (he) talked to me about it. He’s helped me, talked to me...he told me if I wanted to play sports I need to be there.”
Fleming, he said, helped him understand how the choices his middle school self was making were going to impact his future life.
“He made me realize I had to change so I could be better,” Brown said, adding he looked out for him and his family when no one else did. “I remember one year that my mom lost her job or something and we didn’t have money for school clothes. He helped us out, got us clothes and stuff for school. He would pay me to help out with the little kids (games) so I could have my own money and could buy stuff I need–I’d buy, like, food or sometimes my mom would buy clothes or stuff I need, but most of the time it was food for the house.”
Brown said he, too, wants to play college football, but if that doesn’t happen--or even if it does--he wants to pursue a course of study, like law, “so I can do something with my life, make something of myself.”
Rahim Mitchell, a junior at Catholic Central High School, said Fleming took him under his mentoring wing years ago when he came to MLK center to play some basketball.
“It’s just really good to have a person like that in our life,” he said.
He said Fleming always makes time to help kids find their way, even if it means giving up his Sunday at home to be with his “second family.”
“He’s probably tired, I know he’s got a family, but he’ll still come and train with (us.) He’d come and help me train on Sundays, lifting and doing agility (drills) to make sure I’m in shape for the next season,” Mitchell said.
“I’m not the only one that he’s helped. There’s others ... that he talked to, sat (us down) and told us we could be great, we had potential.”
He also recalled the time he let slip to Fleming that he got a bad grade on a test. “He made me sit down with his daughter, she’s really smart, and I had to study the whole time I was there,” he said. “(But) I learned my lesson and got my act together, I’m getting good grades now.”
He also plans to go on to college, possibly to study something like business management. While he plays running back, wide receiver, defensive back and kick “Mr. Fleming definitely has very high expectations for me,” he said. “When I don’t meet them he’s probably disappointed, I know he wants me to excel. Outside of my family, Mr. Fleming is the only person who really sees that in me.”
Stephen Mcshan, a sophomore at Steubenville High School, said he’s been working with “Mr. Fleming” for years, maybe since I was 8 or 9.”
“I used to go to the center and he’d be there,” he said. “He helped me work on my game -- he teaches us everything about it, the stuff you need to be good at in sports.”
Fleming, he said, “always wants you to do the right thing, and to do what’s best for you.” He said he also makes a point of feeding them because a lot of times, the kids he works with don’t.
“He taught me a lot of things, to be myself,” Mcshan said. “He taught me how to be a man. He’s definitely been a role model in my life.”
Cole Bowers, in his freshman year at Army, is playing Division 1 football, said the MLK Center “is like a second home for all of us.”
“I’d never want to get to the center and him not be there with a smile on his face, ready for anything we want to do,” Bowers said between classes. “He’s inspired me -- he has what he does as an education, then he goes to the center. It’s like his second home. He’s made me a better man and just him being there every time, (we see) how he shows up for us (and that’s) how we should show up for each other.
“Honestly, I don’t know that I’d be sitting here today if it wasn’t for him,” he added. “When you’re around him, you quickly realize how much he cares about the people of our community -- that’s what really inspired me, to just take that value of doing for the community into my everyday life.”
Fleming, he said, “is a second father to probably half of Steubenville and the MLK Center is a home to half of Steubenville. And if anyone else wants to become part of that family, he would welcome them in with open arms.”
Bowers said he never considered himself on the brink of making bad decisions, “but I could see it in the friends around me.”
“He was always keeping us in check,” he said
He points to Big Red’s 2025-26 boys basketball season: The squad finished the season with a 26-2 record and was the OHSAA Division III State Runner-Up. “Every single player that got into a game on that state basketball run played in the MLK Center with Coach Fleming. “He always has the center open for us to go play ball,” Bowers said. “And not only just play ball. We’ve done plenty of weight training there, too. He always has a good program for us to get on.”
Fleming, he said, “keeps me grounded, keeps me humble.”
“No matter where I’m at, (he taught me) to always have a goal that you’re striving for,” he said. “There’s never a mountain top, there’s always something more we can go after. Honestly, I don’t know if I could have played Division 1 football (without him). Coach Fleming is the one who reminded me if I just put my head down and do what I’m supposed to do every single day, everything is achievable...He would constantly remind me, ‘If you keep at it and you keep working, you can do it, it’s not a pipe dream. Anything is achievable as long as you put the effort in.”