LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- In his final hours, Altee Tenpenny was a person determined to fix his life.
That was the message of those closest to the former University of Alabama running back, who died last Tuesday after a single-car accident just outside of the west Mississippi town of Glen Allan. Before his death, the 20-year-old Tenpenny reached out to his mother for help, made contact with his estranged father for the first time in years and admitted to his former high school coach that he was "out of control."
After three exhausting days in Thibodaux, La., which included a night out with friends after a football game, a night in jail on gun charges, the emotionally draining decision to quit yet another football team and then his last night at Nicholls State with friends, Tenpenny left that bayou town for Arkansas, but never made it home.
Back in Little Rock, Ark., his family and their church's pastor had planned an intervention that would never happen.
Instead, the pastor of Gaines Street Baptist Church eulogized Tenpenny on Saturday during a heart-wrenching service that lasted four hours and featured at least a dozen clergy members and a 35-person choir that shook even the most wayward souls to their bones.
When it was all over, close to 50 of the hundreds in attendance had been moved to baptism, all walking down crowded and stuffy aisles filled with folded steel chairs for the overflow of mourners and accepting Jesus Christ as their lord and savior directly between the casket and a grieving family.
"Has anyone here made a bad choice in life?" shouted Gaines Street pastor J. Barrington Minix. "We all have. The only difference is ours weren't played out in public."
Even in death, the show never stopped surrounding Tenpenny, whose Twitter handle, @Boobie_Miles_22, offers perhaps a glimpse into his star-crossed theatrical existence. Miles, of course, was the name of the Odessa Permian High School running back in the non-fiction book "Friday Night Lights," which later became a movie and television show. In the end, Miles' great flaw is that he didn't live up to everyone's expectations.
Tenpenny apparently wanted to begin correcting his perceived mistakes, or at least find a healthy balance between reality and being a highly prized football player since the beginning of puberty. Sadly, he is no longer alive to do so.
After crying over the phone during his long car ride home, family and friends believe Tenpenny fell asleep at the wheel of his black Dodge Charger and veered off of Mississippi Highway 1. Initial accounts of the wreck by Mississippi Highway Patrol suggest the same despite it occurring around 5 p.m.
His death has devastated a family, a church, a community, a state and multiple collegiate football teams, and left many wondering how the promising life of someone who brought all of those around him so much joy could have ended so tragically.
"A lot of people are really, really shook up, and not because he's a great football player, but because he was a great person," said Brad Bolding, who coached Tenpenny at North Little Rock High School and gave his former player a moving tribute during the funeral.
Nick's Kids Foundation, established by Alabama coach Nick Saban and his wife Terry, made a donation for that service, according to an administrator for the Gaines Street Baptist Church. More than $20,000 was raised for the funeral through a GoFundMe account, and Bolding said in a Facebook post $8,000 was donated by Saban's foundation.
It was Saban who encouraged Tenpenny to remain at Alabama and work through his problems rather than transfer to UNLV last summer, according to the high school coach. Tenpenny was in Las Vegas for a few months before being dismissed from the team by a first-year coach.
"He just kind of had that infectious personality," said former Alabama assistant Mike Groh, who recruited Tenpenny before leaving to be an assistant with the Chicago Bears. "He was always positive and upbeat. I loved the kid, and it's just a really tragic ending to a life that had so much promise."
Many coaches loved Tenpenny's ebullience and athleticism, but ultimately none could stop his spiral downward. His fall shows just how difficult it is sometimes for even the best coaches and most well-run programs to help troubled players, but maybe it also exposes some of college football's inherent pitfalls.
Tenpenny did not come from a broken home, and his former high school guidance counselors described a student not only focused on qualifying for college, but also a natural leader who went out of his way to inspire younger classmates.
"His troubles didn't start until college," Bolding said.
Perhaps not, but the pressures to perform once he got there started long before he ever stepped foot in Tuscaloosa.
---
Privately run football combines have become the athletic clearinghouse for college football coaches looking for high-school talent. Tenpenny gained notoriety at one of Nike's events the summer before his sophomore year, and before he ever took a handoff of varsity football. His score at a combine in Fort Worth, Texas, the following summer instantly made him a blue-chip recruit.
"He was a god before he could drive," said Bolding, who drove Tenpenny around the country to different showcases.
If combine scores aren't enough to inflate the egos and expectations of 15- and 16-year-olds (and even seventh- and eighth-graders), then the industry of recruiting websites does the trick. As if they were movies to be judged for entertainment, high school football and basketball players are given a value of one to five stars by self-appointed experts.
Seemingly the only true impact is on the very real effect of shaping a child's self worth.
"With all the media attention and limelight, you have to check yourself at the door and that's impossible for some kids to do at such a young age," said Bolding, who was terminated from his position as North Little Rock High School football coach last spring for recruiting violations. "I can't imagine being that young and all this stuff starts up."
Most college coaches don't place much value in the recruiting rankings, but fans love it and it drives interest, hype and, more specifically, Internet traffic. Half the reason Tenpenny's troubles were ever newsworthy is because of his coveted recruiting rating. The other half is because he went to Alabama.
The Crimson Tide was in the middle of its dynasty when Groh, then Saban's receivers coach, recruited Tenpenny out of Arkansas. An athletic star from close-knit North Little Rock, Tenpenny arrived at Alabama in 2013 as a U.S. Army All-American and quickly became a locker-room favorite. He called former Alabama safety Landon Collins "big bro," and Tenpenny's 2,000-kilowatt smile lit up every room.
His charisma reached beyond the football facilities, though. Tenpenny was well-liked by his academic instructors as well. One former teacher wrote a heartfelt letter to Tenpenny's family after his death. The letter was read aloud during the funeral service.
"As Altee's former public-speaking professor at the University of Alabama, I want you to know that he not only touched your lives, but also my life as well as his former classmates," wrote Kyle R. Fox, now teaching at Georgia Perimeter College-Alpharetta. "When he entered my class during the summer of 2013, his smile was the first thing I noticed. His joyous disposition, and charm quickly made him the class favorite."
Tenpenny's later struggles were well-documented, including an arrest for marijuana possession over spring break in 2014, and being late for a team meeting last season, but it's easy enough to see why Saban apparently did everything to help the running back. The coach liked him.
Like most coaches, Saban would rather help a troubled player than kick him off the team. One of his final measures of discipline with Tenpenny, according to his high school coach, was asking the running back to sign a contract promising to stay out of trouble. Tenpenny instead asked to transfer.
Buried on the Alabama depth chart, and apparently out of favor with running backs coach Burton Burns, Tenpenny no longer thought he could earn playing time at Alabama, says Bolding. A spokesman for Saban would neither confirm nor deny Saban's contract proposal with Tenpenny.
"He felt he had messed up too much," Bolding said. "Ultimately it was his decision. Saban was really working with him, and wanted him to clean his act up."
Tenpenny no longer saw his path to the NFL going through Alabama. Meanwhile, UNLV certainly needed the help at running back. The Rebels were ranked last in the Mountain West Conference in 2014, averaging 3.60 yards per carry in 13 games.
UNLV did not respond for this story, but Tenpenny's high school coach said he was kicked off that team for being late for a meeting and then missing the team picture. Forced to sit out a season due to NCAA transfer rules, Tenpenny would not have been eligible for the Rebels this season.
"A new coach made an example out of him," Bolding said.
After dismissal from UNLV, Tenpenny caught on with Nicholls State of the Football Championship Subdivision, and last week was awaiting an eligibility ruling by the NCAA. He had only practiced with his new teammates, but made some great first impressions all the way up until to the day he was arrested.
"I immediately told him -- it wasn't even a week into it -- I said, 'Man, I look at you like a son, and I love you,'" said Nicholls State running backs coach Alan Ricard, who played fullback for the Baltimore Ravens from 2001-2005. "I meant that from the bottom of my heart because there was just something about him. He was just a charmer. He was just a good guy. Everybody liked him. Everybody loved him."
---
Ricard was the last football coach to visit with Tenpenny before he left Louisiana for Arkansas. Nicholls State suspended Tenpenny indefinitely following his arrest, but Tenpenny instead chose to leave the team. As always, Tenpenny's huge smile belied concerns for his future.
"When he left on Monday, he stopped into the meeting room while we were going in to work on our film from the game on Saturday," Ricard said, "and he was just hugging everybody with a big smile and laughing and calling them all by their nicknames and was just a good spirit."
Tenpenny's true emotions poured out over the phone with family and Bolding, the high school coach who contributed to Tenpenny's development and exposure.
"He wanted help," Bolding said. "He knew he was out of control. He owned up to things. He always did."
Tenpenny's last words to his mother, Shenitta Shephard, included a plea for help. He also responded to a text message from his father, Derek Tenpenny, who had gone several years without hearing from his son. Altee was raised by his mother and step-father, Lee Shephard.
"On the day my son died, I sent him a text," Derek Tenpenny said at the funeral. "I was angry about what I had read in the papers, but I always wanted to keep it open. I said, 'Son, football and college, this ain't working. I don't know what it is that you're running from, but you need to come home so we can fix it.'
"And Altee texted me back. My son texted me back. Instantly. Y'all don't understand. When you spend years texting and calling, and you don't get nothing -- a minute after I sent my text, my son texted me back. And he said, 'Yes, sir. When can we meet?'"
There are no direct routes from Thibodaux, La., to Little Rock, Ark. -- no easy roads snake through the bayou. There are some beautiful drives, however, that follow that big river up through the Mississippi Delta. Tenpenny was on the prettiest of them all when he apparently fell asleep at the wheel.
Mississippi Highway 1 is part of a larger scenic byway known as Great River Road, and Tenpenny's car veered off it around 5 p.m. last Tuesday. Traveling north toward home, Tenpenny drifted across the southbound lane where the highway narrows from five lanes to two.
With the Mississippi River just to west, those roads are all raised high like levees in that part of the country. Tenpenny's car went through a traffic sign, down the raised highway, and then up the other side before violently flipping out of control. Bolding, who drove Tenpenny around the country during his high school years, noted the energetic child would doze off for hours on long trips "like he had taken a sleeping pill."
"Six hours or 10 hours, didn't matter," Bolding said. "He was a hard sleeper."
Mississippi Highway Patrol currently is investigating the accident and should have an official report by the end of the week.
Truly, it matters little.
Relevant only to the family of Tenpenny is that while he had made a series of mistakes to temporarily suspend his football career, pursuit of his dream wasn't over when he said goodbye to his third set of teammates in only a few short months. He loved the game, and, by all accounts, he still loved the Alabama Crimson Tide. There were still people who wanted to help him.
"His mother spoke with me on Monday and she shared some things with me that were going on with him," said Rev. Minix, the talented pastor of Gaines Street Baptist church. "It was our plan to all sit down and to discuss how we were going to regroup from this point forward."
Minix's fiery, 45-minute eulogy of Tenpenny folded visions of Vince Lombardi and Roy "Wrong Way" Riegels into a necessary sermon on life. He pleaded with the many hundreds of young people in attendance to have fun, but make the right choices. He scolded a group of Tenpenny's friends for reeking of "a strong herbal aroma" during Friday night's visitation.
Said Minix: "Maybe you have traveled down some wrong roads. Or maybe you made some wrong turns in life. Maybe you made some bad choices in life, or maybe you've fallen victim to peer pressure. That's OK. Get up. Dust yourself off, and keep on running. To do that it takes determination. Let me tell you something, Altee had that determination to keep on running even after a fall. He never gave up, but he knew how to get back up and start all over again, and get back into the game. That's what life is all about."
What can be learned from all this sadness?
Said Groh, the coach who recruited Tenpenny to Alabama: "You just hope that the young men will think twice about the decisions that they make and hope they make the right choices. It was pretty evident in his time at Alabama that he impacted guys in a positive way. He had the potential to have a great career."
AL.com reporters Matt Zenitz and John Talty contributed to this report.