Appalachia football star heads to college l Hidden America: Children of the Mountains PART 6/6

Diane Sawyer checks in with football player Shawn Grim as he heads off to college. [Original Air Date 2/13/2009]

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It is now spring back
in Paintsville Kentucky,

and that football superstar
Shawn Grim has climbed

a giant mountain all his own.

Shawn Grim!

Beating the odds, Shawn Grim
becomes the first person

in his family ever to get
a high school diploma.

Shawn is on his way up and
out, because Pikeville College,

about an hour from
his home, has awarded

him a football scholarship.

He gets that surgery
on his damaged knee,

complete with tempting
prescription painkillers

with his mother Tina.

OK.

It'd be $150 for these 30.

If I wanted to sell, I
could get rid of it today.

But my son is more
important than $1.

As we said, it's a big
achievement for Shawn

to go to college.

His stepbrother, Little
Man, dropped out of school

and has two kids.

[MUSIC PLAYING - "LOLLIPOP"]

Listen.

We were in Little Man's
trailer when Shawn played me

that ringtone again.

Can I see the dance
you do to "Lollipop"?

I don't know the dance.

I bet you do.

Seriously, I don't.

Sorry.

I know the song.

But just as Shawn is
getting close to going off

to his new life, a new blow.

Little Man's girlfriend,
the mother of his children,

says at 3:00 AM she found Little
Man and his 15-year-old half

sister out in back of
the trailer having sex.

Shawn's mother Tina
called the cops.

Knowing they're blood-related,
and knowing that that happened,

that is really
disgusting in my book.

Shawn's stepdad Rick says
if Little Man comes around,

he's ready.

I'd blow his head off his body.

I'd shoot my own mother.

The parents are
heading out to see

their daughter, who's been taken
to a social services facility.

Later, Tina tells us she too
was molested by a family member

when she was young.

Rick says this kind of
thing doesn't just happen

in Appalachia, it's everywhere.

Well, did you ever hear the
old saying, the closer the kin,

the deeper in?

It doesn't matter who it is.

They lay down.

Black, white, crippled,
it don't matter.

In tears, Shawn's half
sister tells their mother

that little man gave her
pills or marijuana or money

in exchange for sex,
and back home says

that wasn't the first time.

It happens all so
fast, you really

don't know what's
going on around you.

You just go on all
through the days,

pretending like
nothing's ever happened

because you're so scared.

Little Man says
he is not guilty.

The mother of his children
has now recanted her story.

Well, unfortunately,
Eastern Kentucky

has a stereotype of incest,
but it's everywhere.

It's in the whole United States.

And we have to be able
to make sure and get out

that this cycle
has to be broken.

For Shawn, anger
and embarrassment.

In the wake of all this, he
goes off to Pikeville College

to begin his new life, trying
to upend all those stereotypes.

Us hillbillies don't
want to do nothing

but drink and do drugs
the rest of their life?

Is that what you're saying?

Stereotype.

Arriving at school,
it's clear he

doesn't have the advantages
a lot of the other kids have.

What's your story?

I ain't got a lot of money and--

You ain't got a lot of money?

No.

What'd you live in back home?

A house.

I slept wherever I fell asleep.

Hut!

For eight weeks, he goes
to football practice,

where his teammates
are now twice his size.

He also struggles
in the classroom,

says he's feeling overwhelmed.

And by the way, his
girlfriend from the right side

of the tracks has long
since broken up with him.

Failing is probably I guess the
biggest thing to ever scare me.

But I guess I'm just going to
work harder and try harder.

Even with the
scholarship, he says

he has no money for what
other kids can afford--

supplies, food, fun.

After only eight
weeks, he loses heart.

He drops out and goes back home.

Found out I couldn't
pay for the college.

Had to come home.

No one's perfect.

Winter is coming.

The family needs coal,
so Shawn heads out

for one of those illegal
scavenging trips on the highway

wall on Route 23.

And all the people
whizzing by have no idea

that the kid digging coal
on the side of the road

was once the hope and hero
of Appalachian football,

now on the side of the highway,
with nothing around the bend.