Jelks runs Decatur Dominators toward greater goals

Eighteen years later, Jelks said he still has the same vision for his Decatur Dominators: trying to broaden young kids' vision of what's possible.

"The biggest thing for me is showing kids there's more to life than the violence that's around here," Jelks said. "People getting shot, drugs. If you got a talent and you can keep your grades and you stay out of trouble, you got a real shot of getting out of here and going to school."

Jelks knows about success. The 1986 MacArthur graduate won the 200 meters in a then-record time of 21.27 seconds at state while taking third in the 100, helping the Generals take second place as a team. It catapulted him to a scholarship with Nebraska.

In '98, he and his brother Chris formed the Dominators, a track and field club team designed to push athletes to scholarships on their own. And he wanted to expand their scope of the U.S.

So in the first year of his program, Jelks said they cut grass, washed cars and painted garages to drum up enough money to go to Seattle. And while it was a chance to broaden exposure, Jelks said he took them to the top of the Space Needle to broaden their perspective.

"Most of them hadn't been past the mall," he said. "That's where life ends for most of my kids. A lot of them hadn't been in hotels before."

It's been 18 years since the start, and Jelks has had plenty of time to see where many of his kids have ended up. And while the Dominators program is designed to help athletes gain scholarships, he was proud hearing how a former runner joined the Army.

"When you do that, you know you do something right. A lot of the times you don't know if you're doing something right, but when people come back and tell you what you did for them -- that's the goal," Jelks said.

Jelks said he rides his athletes hard toward success, partially because he knows that's what made him successful.

"A lot of it was because of my parents. They were strict, they were rough. A lot of the stuff they did, I hated it," he said. "But had they not been that way, I wouldn't have made it."

"I used to be, when I first started, this real excited guy," Jelks said. "Always screaming and yelling, and I scream a little bit now, but my dad was real low-key. But the older I've gotten, the last five years, I'm real low-key now.

Jelks is still relentless with determination. Pushing an athlete to where they can better their lives is the ultimate goal.

"Everybody's not going to get a scholarship, but the way I coach, my mentality is anyone I coach is going to get one, even if that's not realistic thinking," he said. "That's just how I think, though."