Immigration status could leave Peabody football player without scholarship

PEABODY, Mass. — A Peabody High School football star's college scholarship is in jeopardy over his immigration status, which has been anything but easy.

The young man's football coach has done all he can, including taking him in, to help.

Doug Santos came to the United States from Brazil in 2003. He was just 7-years-old and came illegally through an underground system.

Santos and his 8-year-old sister traveled in the back of tractor trailers and vans, walked across Mexico, and then finally into the United States by themselves.

The pair ended up in Peabody, where Doug now plays football.

Doug couch surfed at night and went to school during the day. Eventually, the Department of Children and Families wanted to take him to a group home for kids who have been abandoned by their parents.

That's when Doug's football coach, Mark Bettencourt, took him in.

"Sometimes he'd wear, like, the same clothes to school a couple of days in a row," Bettencourt said.

The Bettencourt's have four children of their own, but they wanted to help Doug stay in school and continue playing football. So, during Doug's sophomore year, he moved in with the family just before Christmas 2013.

Before moving in with “Coach B,” Doug's grades were poor, his attitude was poor -- he didn't even know how to read or add and subtract. He had extreme difficulties in math and reading and writing English, as his first language is Portuguese.

"He was a wild, wild kid," Bettencourt said. He was in trouble in school all the time, his grades were awful."

"I wasn't used to anyone telling me what to do," Doug said. "No one was telling me to do my homework, no one was telling me to come home at a certain time."

But Coach B's kids helped him with his studies and he went from a C or F student to taking honors classes and getting As and Bs.

"I'd ask him addition and subtraction problems and he'd be guessing," Bettencourt said. "My, at the time, 9 and 8-year-old daughters would bring their flash cards down and we'd have little competitions."

In Doug's junior year, he rushed for more than 2,000 yards and broke the records at Peabody High for both yards rushed and touchdowns scored. He did it again his senior year and became Peabody High's all time leading rusher.

"I think on the North Shore, he's number three as far as rushers go," Bettencourt said.

When he started looking at colleges and colleges started looking at him, the family thought Doug had gotten his green card before he turned 18. But, unfortunately, there was a glitch in the system and he had only received permission to work.

"Without a green card, he doesn't qualify for any financial aid," Bettencourt explained. "I think it would be a tragedy if the story ended with him either not getting his green card or him getting the green card and the time we need it -- expiring."

That status disqualified him from any financial aid and many schools started to back away. Assumption College is the only school who said they would wait for the green card process.

“DCF is incredibly grateful for foster parents like the Bettencourts who take the time to mentor young people and provide them with stable homes needed to be successful," DCF spokesperson Andrea Grossman said via email. "The department is fully supportive of our foster families and does everything it can so that children in care have every opportunity to achieve their goals, whether it be getting their driver’s license, their first part-time job or obtaining a college degree.”

"I worked really hard to get to where I am today with the help of coach and his wife and his kids," Doug said. "I feel like this is the next step to something great, you know what I mean? So if I don't have this it would just be like throwing everything away."

The school offered Doug a full scholarship, but with his immigration status in question, he could lose it. He and the Bettencourts are desperately trying to find some way to make his American dream come true.

"I love this man," Doug said turning to his coach. "I love you man, you know that right?"

Cox Media Group