Second Chance

Allyn Hood knew his teenage son, Daniel, would find only trouble in the after-school hours at the juvenile group home where he lived following his 2004 conviction in Sullivan County for aggravated rape and kidnapping.

So the father suggested that his athletic son try football.

Since then, the game has become Daniel Hood’s salvation, and this week it gained him a scholarship to the University of Tennessee. It’s also become a nationally publicized redemption for his sins, in part because among his college admission package was a letter from the victim, a relative.

“To say I’m grateful, to say I’m happy, to say I’m excited, that really doesn’t do my emotions justice,” Daniel Hood said Thursday in a telephone interview.

Today is Daniel Hood’s last day at Knoxville Catholic High School, where he became Tennessee’s Class 3A player of the year as a senior, 6-foot-5, 255-pound defensive end and tight end. He was accepted at Catholic while serving time and undergoing sex offender treatment at a west Knoxville juvenile home for the August 2003 kidnapping and aggravated rape of his 14-year-old cousin. Hood, then 13, helped 17-year-old Robert Sanico duct tape the girl at Allyn Hood’s Kingsport home and watched as Sanico raped her with a toilet plunger.

“It was heinous behavior,” Daniel Hood said. “It was terrible, and what happened should never have happened. There’s no woman in America that deserves something like that.”

UT football coach Lane Kiffin announced this week that he had done what other university programs would not: offer Hood a scholarship.

“We didn’t go about this lightly,” Kiffin said in a written statement. “We spent a lot of time researching the issue and talking to a lot of people who are well respected in the community. Everyone spoke very highly of Daniel.”

The clincher for UT was a recommendation from the victim.

“I know my cousin Daniel on a personal level and I believe that he has been very remorseful towards me,” she wrote in a letter obtained by the Bristol Herald Courier. “We are now working on rebuilding our relationship, hoping to become a family like before.”

Daniel Hood said of his cousin: “I think that shows the type of character she has. ... She could have just as easily come out and opposed my going into college.”

Sanico was tried as an adult and is now serving a 10-year prison sentence at Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville, Tenn. Daniel Hood wound up in the custody of the Department of Children’s Services.

His detention began at a rehabilitation center at Mountain View Youth Development Center in Dandridge, Tenn. From there, he was transferred to the group home in west Knoxville.

The other juvenile offenders were chauffeured by van to a public school each day and after classes would hang around the group home. But Allyn Hood wanted none of that for his son. As a bail bondsman, he knew a life of crime likely awaited his son if he had too much empty time on his hands.

First, Hood enrolled his son at the private Catholic school in an effort to distance him from the group home residents. The same van that shuttled students to the public school shipped Daniel Hood to Catholic.

Then, the father hatched a plan to keep his son busy – football.

“I figured the more he was involved in sports, the more he would be away from the group home,” Allyn Hood said.

Two years ago, Daniel Hood was able to leave the group home but continued attending Catholic.

In a week, he’ll accept his diploma with a 3.8 grade-point average and then start playing football for the Volunteers.

“Not only is it Tennessee, but you’re also playing in the Southeast Conference,” Daniel Hood said.

His father, also a former teacher, knew the UT scholarship would draw intense scrutiny, both by the media and in Internet chat rooms.

“I feel like if he went to UT as a dance student or just to study law there or something, there wouldn’t have been nothing said at all,” Allyn Hood said. “But because it’s football ...”

His son said his crime taught him empathy and how to relate to others with troubled pasts.

“It’s tough to have your picture on the front page of the newspapers,” Daniel Hood said, “but with anything, you can either be angry with it or you can let it go and learn from it.”

mowens@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2549