Chap­ter 1: Phillip begins by offer­ing an inti­mate glimpse into the life of Phillip Cas­tane­da, a young man nav­i­gat­ing home­less­ness in the back­seat of his father’s Nis­san Sen­tra in the late sum­mer of 2021. At a time when the world was slow­ly emerg­ing from the shad­ows of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, Phillip’s dai­ly rou­tine revolved around mak­ing the best of his dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances. Each day began with him dress­ing in the car and then head­ing to a near­by Tar­get for bath­room access, mark­ing a stark con­trast to the typ­i­cal morn­ing rou­tines of his peers. The foot­ball field vis­i­ble from his car offered him a glim­mer of hope and a sym­bol of his aspi­ra­tions. Though small in stature, Phillip was deter­mined to show­case his speed and tough­ness, and he set his sights on join­ing the var­si­ty foot­ball team, hop­ing to prove him­self on the field despite the odds stacked against him.

Phillip’s father, Jude Ward Cas­tane­da, made sig­nif­i­cant sac­ri­fices to pro­vide his son with a sem­blance of sta­bil­i­ty. Park­ing his car in a lot on Arling­ton Avenue, sur­round­ed by local busi­ness­es like Yum Yum Donuts and a cannabis dis­pen­sary, Jude and his son found a qui­et spot to sleep at night. They stayed away from oth­er vehi­cles and used a gym mem­ber­ship for access to show­ers, a small lux­u­ry in the face of their hard­ship. After the shops closed each night, Jude and his girl­friend would occu­py the front seats, leav­ing Phillip the back for pri­va­cy. Jude, once a promis­ing ath­lete in his youth, now bat­tled the weight of a trou­bled past filled with addic­tion and incar­cer­a­tion. Despite his strug­gles, Jude’s deter­mi­na­tion to give Phillip a bet­ter chance in life nev­er wavered. His hope was that Phillip wouldn’t fall into the same traps that had ensnared him and instead would find a way to rise above the dif­fi­cul­ties they both faced.

Liv­ing in Cal­i­for­nia, where near­ly a third of the nation’s home­less pop­u­la­tion resides, pre­sent­ed Phillip with unique chal­lenges. His expe­ri­ence of home­less­ness was fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by his tur­bu­lent upbring­ing, includ­ing attend­ing six dif­fer­ent schools and fac­ing sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges in learn­ing Eng­lish, which was vast­ly dif­fer­ent from his native Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage (ASL). Born near San Fran­cis­co, Phillip grew up in a house­hold where his moth­er, who was deaf and suf­fered from rheuma­toid arthri­tis, could not work and relied on dis­abil­i­ty assis­tance for their sur­vival. Despite these obsta­cles, Phillip demon­strat­ed remark­able resilience, adapt­ing to his cir­cum­stances while try­ing to build a bet­ter future for him­self. The dif­fi­cul­ties he faced on a dai­ly basis only seemed to fuel his deter­mi­na­tion, rein­forc­ing his belief that he could over­come his sit­u­a­tion with per­sis­tence and hard work.

Phillip’s teenage years in Modesto, Cal­i­for­nia, were marked by his involve­ment in foot­ball, where he played along­side hear­ing peers. Dur­ing this time, a friend helped him cov­er the cost of league fees, allow­ing Phillip to pur­sue his pas­sion for the sport. While his tal­ent on the field was unde­ni­able, he often found him­self strug­gling with com­mu­ni­ca­tion bar­ri­ers that left him iso­lat­ed from his team­mates. At prac­tice, Phillip would posi­tion him­self at the end of drills, using the time to observe his peers and improve his skills through sheer deter­mi­na­tion. Foot­ball became more than just a game for him; it became a lifeline—a way for him to escape the frus­tra­tions of his every­day life. His dreams of one day play­ing in the Nation­al Foot­ball League (NFL) were not just lofty ambi­tions; they became a source of moti­va­tion, pro­vid­ing him with hope and direc­tion even dur­ing the tough­est times.

Phillip’s sis­ter, Priscil­la Cas­tane­da, often spoke about the joy foot­ball brought him, not­ing that the sport was a con­stant source of hap­pi­ness in his life. Despite the many chal­lenges Phillip faced—both in terms of his home­less­ness and his strug­gles with communication—football pro­vid­ed him with a sense of pur­pose and belong­ing. His com­mit­ment to the sport went beyond just play­ing; it was about find­ing a way to nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of his life and turn his cir­cum­stances into an oppor­tu­ni­ty for suc­cess. The dri­ve to suc­ceed in foot­ball became a reflec­tion of his broad­er desire to over­come the hard­ships he encoun­tered dai­ly. Foot­ball, for Phillip, was not just a means of ath­let­ic achievement—it was a path to a brighter future, one where his strug­gles could be out­weighed by his tri­umphs. Through his jour­ney, he demon­strat­ed the pow­er of resilience and the impor­tance of pur­su­ing dreams, no mat­ter how unat­tain­able they may seem at first.