— Kevin Ferguson II tries to watch Animal Planet in the hours before his football games at Coral Springs High School.
The senior running back and linebacker finds it relaxes him, steels him, prepares him for the fierce battle ahead.
"Stay focused," he says. "Have a goal. Win."
It's an approach Ferguson learned from his namesake father, who knows a little about the art of survival when chaos swirls.
You probably know the elder Ferguson by his stage name: Kimbo Slice.
These days, the erstwhile MMA sensation is trying to carve out a new career in the boxing ring. In between trips to tiny outposts like Miami, Okla., he makes it to his son's football games whenever he can.
He was there last Friday at the Colts' homecoming loss to Cardinal Gibbons, but he slipped out before the blowout ended with a minor injury to his son's left shoulder.
"He told me before his fights he watches Animal Planet," Kevin says. "He watches how the lions stalk their prey. They don't make a sound. All these different animals around, but they'll focus on that one animal until they're ready to attack. They stay focused and they visualize and they attack them."
He smiles.
"My dad is a perfect example of that," he says from behind the same thick beard that has become his father's trademark.
It hasn't always been about fighting for Kimbo Slice. Football was his first love, his devotion enough to make the former Miami Palmetto High middle linebacker a second-team All-County selection.
That was 20 years ago.
Then came Hurricane Andrew and a shortened senior season, and his scholarship opportunities evaporated.
He flunked out at Bethune-Cookman, bounced back to South Florida and soon found himself living on the street. It took him more than a decade to rise to prominence as a street-fighting, YouTube sensation.
Four years ago, he headlined the first MMA show ever carried live in prime time on network television.
He eventually flamed out, his ring skills not nearly as strong as his charisma and his back story.
However, the lessons of fame, gained and lost, remain for those who watched him go through it all.
"It shows me if you have a goal, commit to that goal," says Kevin II, the middle of three sons.
Kevin Jr., 28, is studying photography in San Francisco.
Kevlar, 8, has autism, which has drawn his famous father into that realm of fundraising.
