Verbum Dei tries to rise again after suspending football program
If you need someone to get rid of ghosts, you call Ghostbusters. If you need someone to clean up a mess in Catholic education, you call the Jesuits.
Father Travis Russell, a 39-year-old Jesuit priest, is in his third year serving as president of Verbum Dei, the iconic all-boys Catholic high school that opened in Watts in 1962 and was almost shut down for lack of funds in the late 1990s until the Jesuits took over and created a corporate work study program to help each student pay for tuition.
The school has a long, proud history of producing quality athletes, with the 1970s particularly remembered for its powerhouse basketball teams that featured the likes of Raymond Lewis and David Greenwood. Football also has had its share of stars, including Hardy Nickerson, who played 16 seasons in the NFL after graduating in 1983.