The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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Football 2013 The Move Forming The Bond A Star Is Born When Crisp was an eighth grader at Broadview Middle School in Burlington, he could not play football or basketball because of his grades. Intelligence wasn't the issue, but desire was. "I was a kid that loved sports, but didn't want to work hard," Crisp admitted. "I was real lazy. I didn't like doing stuff. I didn't like going to school. "I didn't plan on staying in school. I really disliked school." Word got to Singer that this physically gifted athlete was not on the right track. Singer knew that in sports, size and speed matter. Crisp had both. "I thought to myself, he's a good kid and he deserves a chance," Singer said. Crisp had already been hanging out often with the Singer family, and Singer noticed that Crisp seemed to enjoy being around the team. "I guess he had not done that much of that sort of thing," Singer said. "He liked it." Crisp still remembers the day Singer and Crisp's mother, Platto, made the arrangement that would change everyone's lives. Platto originally was going to pick Crisp up at the Singers' house, but instead Singer drove Crisp back to the trailer park he lived in behind Cummings High School in Burlington. Singer wanted to talk to Platto. For two hours, Crisp sat on the porch while Singer and Platto chatted. The arrangement: Crisp would stay with the Singers during the week and spend weekends home with his mother. "He told my mom that he thinks he could help me have a better future," Crisp remembered. "He sold it to my mom to turn her 14-year-old baby away to him." "Sometimes you make decisions, and sometimes decisions are made for you," Singer reflected. "It just seemed like the right thing." As part of the deal, the Singers enrolled Crisp at Abundant Life Christian Academy in Hillsborough, N.C., and reclassified him back in the seventh grade. The move back was a good thing in basketball because he immediately became older and bigger than the other kids. In his personal life, the adjustment was more difficult. The first day he moved into the house, Crisp remembers telling the younger Pete Singer, with whom he would develop a bond so tight that he now only calls Singer "my brother,": "I don't trust anyone, I don't trust you. I appreciate you, but I don't trust you." Fate would help Crisp develop a very quick trust of the Singer family. Debbie Singer, as her husband describes her, is the "valedictorian, class president kind of really smart girl." Debbie Singer has a background in nursing, and not long after Crisp moved into their house she noticed some things were off about youngster. Crisp was constantly drinking fluids, but not eating like he should have been. He was having to go to the bathroom, he estimated, about 15 or 20 times a night. Crisp sometimes felt that he was going to pass out after about three steps and had to lean on something. With his life beginning to turn in the right direction, Crisp had dreams of playing basketball at Duke University for head coach Mike Krzyzewski. Crisp never let go of that goal, but a new, alternate fantasy began to develop shortly after. The AAU scene was beginning to sour Crisp on the sport of basketball. He began to play on the line for Chapel Hill (N.C.) High School's football team with Pete Singer patrolling the defensive backfield. On Saturdays, the family would go to NC State football games. The Singers — from left to right, Peter, Jason, Pete, Crisp, Laurie, Debbie, and David — are a regular presence at NC State home football games. photo courtesy singer family Debbie Singer knew that these were the symptoms of diabetes. She was right, Crisp was a type II diabetic, and the diagnosis came just in time. Crisp's ketone levels were high, and he required hospitalization. When a diabetic's ketone levels get too high, the result can lead to a diabetic coma. For a 14-year-old like Crisp, the diagnosis was terrifying. What was supposed to be a couple of days in the hospital turned into a week-anda-half stay. Although his mother had set aside work to be at Crisp's side at all times in the hospital, he wanted out. "I got up out of bed and tried to walk out of the building," Crisp said. "I didn't know that the nametag you had was an alarm. I set off the whole building." Worried, Platto called Pete Singer to talk with her son. "He said something to calm me down and stop me from trying to escape from the hospital," Crisp said. "He's a big mentor and the closest thing to a dad that I have. I can listen to this man talk all day because he knows so much. I listen to him about everything." Four of the Singer children had already graduated from NC State, and two sons found their wives at NCSU. "I was growing up learning about this university and watching," Crisp said. "I remember when Chuck Amato was here and had his shades on. I remember coming to see Mario Williams, Manny Lawson and Tank Tyler play. That changed my life completely." Playing football at NC State was beginning to sound good to Crisp, and that was before it became a realistic possibility. On May 3, 2008, Crisp quietly attended a star-studded Nike Camp in Chapel Hill. Rivals.com national analyst Mike Farrell called the Chapel Hill camp "the deepest of its kind all year long." The headliner was supposed to be a rising senior offensive tackle from Jack Britt High in Fayetteville named Xavier Nixon, a can't-miss prospect who was drawing comparisons to NFL star D'Brickashaw Ferguson. Crisp, then a rising junior, outshined Nixon and took home the offensive lineman MVP award. 50 ■ the wolfpacker 48-50,52.Robert Crisp.indd 50 7/2/13 12:31 PM