Ex-football player scores for at-risk kids

LYNN – Jim Unis played for some great Gloucester High football teams in the early 2000s. Whether he was facing Matt Durgin?s Lynn Classical team or Gary Molea?s English Bulldogs, Unis had a way – if you were a Lynn fan – of breaking your heart. Like Peyton Manning, he was one of those guys you had to give his due. You just wished he was on your side.Although at age 31 he won?t be suiting up for the Rams or the Bulldogs anytime soon, the 6-5 former defensive end at Boston College is playing for Lynn these days – only in a different capacity.Unis lives in Lynn now and has made it his mission to fight for at-risk youth in the city. He does this through his role as job developer for Straight Ahead Ministries and as a GED instructor at Catholic Charities, both in Lynn.Straight Ahead Ministries is an international, faith-based organization. Its mission of the past 25 years has been to transform the lives of high-risk and incarcerated youth. It is located in the Hope Center at 1 Munroe St., which is also home to the House of Hope Church where Unis and his wife also serve.Unis? story, as far as football goes, is a familiar one to those who followed high school football when he played. After receiving just about every accolade imaginable coming out of Gloucester High, including All-America honors from USA Today, Parade, PrepStar and SuperPrep, as well as Massachusetts Gatorade Player of the Year in 2001, Unis went on to play defensive end at Boston College. He saw a lot of time his freshman year and was slated for a starting role as a sophomore, but he suffered a concussion – his fourth – during a tackling drill.?The symptoms were really severe at that point,” Unis said, adding he had to make a decision on whether to continue playing football or protect his future health and he chose the latter.?It was a blessing in a way,” Unis said. “If I continued to play, who knows what would have happened.”Unis, who still suffers from migraines, said everyone has to do what?s right for his own situation, but he has friends who play in the NFL and the prospect of them suffering long-term health issues from multiple concussions breaks his heart.?You?re 35 years old and you have the rest of your life ahead of you, but you?re unstable in every way,” he said. “You can?t enjoy your kids, your wife. I really miss being athletic, but we all have our path to choose.”Unis? life did change after he gave up football.?After I stopped playing football, I was in the process of figuring out who I was,” Unis said. “I was growing in my faith and I felt I had a growing passion to work with those who in a lot of ways had additional barriers that I didn?t have to go through.”Unis said his focus in college became about social justice and working toward solutions to deal with poverty and various kinds of oppression.Unis met his future wife, Chelsea, at BC after he stopped playing football. They were both interested in social justice and together started an anti-racist organization that focused on educating and uniting the campus.After graduating from BC, Unis spent time at Boston Community Leadership Academy (a public pilot school) and later at Mt. Ida College, where he helped design a retention initiative for first-generation, low-income students of color who were at risk of dropping out of college. He also coached football for a co-op team that included BCLA and Brighton High.Unis said he felt a strong call to ministry and working with people who are homeless or at-risk of violence, either as victim or perpetrator.?I spent the last six years in the education system trying to figure out how do we support some of our young people who come from some of the more unstable homes, whether it?s a single-parent situation, no parents, a situation where they?re in and out of foster care, or where there?s addiction at home,” he said.At Straight Ahead Ministries, the goal is to surround these young people, many of whom have been incarcerated and most are high school dropouts, with