Daiyan Henley was born into the deadly world of his dad, who put him on a path to the NFL
What follows is a football story and a father-son story and a comeback story. Yeah, a comeback story, one for all time.
Most of all, though, this an L.A. story, a hometown tale that starts in a torrent of gang violence on the blocks of Crenshaw and ends in a cozy huddle of Chargers on the turf of SoFi Stadium.
That covers a distance of barely five miles. But this is L.A., where even the shortest commutes can unravel into an agonizing misadventure of dead ends, regrettable decisions and maddening detours.
Daiyan Henley, a Chargers third-round draft pick in April, was conceived in prison, the son of a first-generation Crip who served 13 years after being convicted of trying to rob an undercover sheriff's deputy of 33 pounds of cocaine.
Eugene Henley reemerged changed and determined to raise his third son better than he did his first two, determined to help heal the community he had wounded, determined to build, to unite, to lead.
"It's one heck of an origin story," Daiyan said. "You know how they talk about antiheroes, the people who are the bad guys but they really aren't? That's my dad."
He's still known by most people as "Big U," though the kids he mentors on the local football field call him "Coach U." Eugene is a hulking, hollering 6 feet 5 with a reputation twice that towering, dating to a time when he became, as Wiz Khalifa once declared, rap music's "godfather."
Eugene also is a multi-cellphone-wielding, Range Rover-maneuvering entertainment executive who produces documentaries, managed Kurupt and
