Marvin Jones (55) was an inner-city Miami product who faced the same choice Gachelin's pupils do now -- football or die.

Under Fleurant Gachelin's watchful eye, the trio of budding football players blasts out four sets of power cleans, just like the five groups of boys that preceded them. All play for Jackson High, a local prep powerhouse. Gachelin, a former competitive bodybuilder, is their freelance strength coach -- at least that's his practical function. With gnarled dreads dangling over each ear and a sloe-eyed glare, he almost has you believing that Smokin' Joe Frazier is back in business -- this time as a Hassidic rabbi.

But to these boys, Gachelin is a holy man of another sort. His home is equal parts warehouse, frat house and football factory. It's a modern-day Sparta set down in the razor-wire neighborhood that spawned Butkus and Lombardi Award winner Marvin Jones, hip-hop icons Luther Campbell and Trick Daddy and some of the worst riots in U.S. history. In this part of the world, as the boys like to say, you have two choices: football or die. Coach Frank offers salvation to anyone who's willing to sweat for it.

House rules are simple: no alcohol and no weed on his property. Weekdays are workdays. Friday night ends at midnight. Saturday's curfew is 1:30 a.m. "The whole concept is to keep their minds focused," he says. "People have no clue what hardships these kids face. Their enemy is the street, and their mothers can't handle 'em. My home is a haven. I am their last resort."

Gachelin's wife, Maggie, a schoolteacher, shares his digs too, along with an 11-year-old daughter, a 7-year-old son, a German shepherd and an ornery rottweiler named Monster. Their patio is littered with pec decks, leg presses, bench presses and squat racks. There's so much iron crammed into the yard that the perimeter palm trees might as well be growing barbells.

To read the rest of the story, get the September 4 issue of ESPN The Magazine.