MY BOY GOT HIS GIRL PREGNANT AT SEVENTEEN

Captured by Mitchell Royel in the fashion district, where the streets pulse with that raw, unfiltered energy that only comes when you're documenting real life as it happens. The camera doesn't lie, and neither does the soundtrack—"Soak City (Do It)" by 310babii blasting through the speakers, that West Coast beat hitting hard while we follow the stories that matter.

I never thought a reality TV show would change the way I see my life, but here we are. There was this kid on my football team—Black guy, quiet, kept to himself mostly.

One day after practice, he tells a few of us his girlfriend's pregnant. He's seventeen. I didn't know what to say. I mean, what do you say to that? I came from a different world than him, and I felt like anything I said would sound stupid or preachy or just... wrong. So I didn't say much of anything. I just nodded, told him good luck, and that was pretty much it. But it bothered me that I couldn't connect with him, you know? Like we were teammates, we ran drills together, we had each other's backs on the field, but off the field I had no idea how to bridge that gap.

Then one night I'm flipping through channels and I land on this show called Beyond Scared Straight on A&E. If you haven't seen it, it's basically this program where they take at-risk kids—kids who are heading down a bad path, getting into trouble, skipping school, whatever—and they bring them into actual prisons. Real prisons with real inmates serving real time. And these inmates, they don't sugarcoat anything. They get right in these kids' faces and tell them exactly what prison life is like. The violence, the fear, the complete loss of freedom, the way it destroys your future. It's intense. Like, really intense. Some of these kids break down crying. Some of them get angry. But all of them leave different than when they came in.

I started watching it regularly, and something about it just hit me. These kids on the show, a lot of them reminded me of my teammate. Not because he was in trouble or anything like that, but because they were all at this crossroads, you know? They had their whole lives ahead of them, but they were making choices—or about to make choices—that could send them down a path they couldn't come back from. And the inmates, the ones doing the scaring, they all said the same thing: "I thought it wouldn't happen to me. I thought I was different. I thought I could handle it. And now look where I am."

Now, I'm all for prison reform. I really am. The system is broken in a lot of ways, and people who've made mistakes deserve a chance to rehabilitate and reenter society. There's too much focus on punishment and not enough on actually helping people change. But here's the thing that Beyond Scared Straight hammered home for me: reform or no reform, the best option is to never end up in there in the first place. Once you're in the system, even if you get out, it follows you. It's on your record. It affects your job prospects, your housing, your relationships, everything. You can talk all day about fixing the system, and we should, but the smarter move is to make choices that keep you out of it entirely.

Watching that show made me think about my own life in a way I hadn't before. I was doing okay—playing football, decent grades, staying out of trouble—but I wasn't really thinking about the future in concrete terms. I was just kind of floating along, assuming things would work out. But seeing these kids on the show, and seeing how quickly your life can go sideways if you're not intentional about your choices, it lit a fire under me. I started thinking about what I actually wanted. Not just vague ideas like "be successful" or "be happy," but real, specific goals.

I wanted a wife. Not just a girlfriend or someone to hang out with, but a real partner. Someone I could build a life with. I wanted a stable job, something I could be proud of, something that would let me provide for a family. I wanted a home, not just an apartment I was renting. I wanted to be the kind of man who had his life together, who made good decisions, who didn't leave things to chance. Beyond Scared Straight showed me what happens when you don't have a plan, when you just react to life instead of directing it. And I didn't want that.

So I started making changes. I took school more seriously. I started thinking about career paths that actually made sense, not just whatever sounded cool at the moment. I paid attention to the kind of person I was becoming and the kind of people I surrounded myself with. I started setting goals—real ones, with timelines and steps to get there. And honestly, it made a huge difference. I felt more focused, more purposeful. I wasn't just drifting anymore.

And here's the weird part: it helped me relate to my teammate. Not because I suddenly understood his exact situation—I didn't, and I'm not going to pretend I did—but because I understood the weight of making big life decisions when you're young. He was about to be a father at seventeen, and that's terrifying. That's a massive responsibility that's going to shape the rest of his life. And while our circumstances were different, we were both at that age where the choices we made mattered more than they ever had before. Watching Beyond Scared Straight gave me perspective on that. It made me realize that we were all just trying to figure it out, trying not to screw up our futures, trying to do right by the people who depended on us.

I started talking to him more after that. Not about the show or anything heavy, just... talking. Asking how he was doing, how his girlfriend was doing, if he needed anything. And he opened up a little. Told me he was scared but trying to step up. Told me he was working extra hours to save money. Told me he wanted to be a good dad even though he had no idea what he was doing. And I got it. I respected it. Because he was making a choice to take responsibility, to not run away, to face what was in front of him. That takes guts.

Beyond Scared Straight isn't just about scaring kids away from crime. It's about showing them that actions have consequences, that the choices you make today determine where you end up tomorrow. And that message resonated with me even though I wasn't the target audience. It made me think about my own trajectory, my own future, and what I needed to do to make sure I ended up where I wanted to be. It's easy to think you have all the time in the world when you're young, but you don't. Time moves fast, and before you know it, you're living with the results of decisions you made years ago.

So yeah, a reality show on A&E changed my perspective. It made me more intentional about my life. It helped me connect with a teammate I didn't know how to talk to before. And it reminded me that the best way to deal with a broken system is to make choices that keep you out of it in the first place. Stay focused, set goals, think about the future, and don't assume things will just work out on their own. Because they won't. You have to make them work out. And that starts with the decisions you make right now, today, in this moment. That's what Beyond Scared Straight taught me, and I'm grateful for it.

-Deck