Boston College star Lukas Denis, seen with a mother's love, stern eye

By Adam Kurkjian

Ketlie Denis was running late Saturday to meet up with a reporter about her son, Lukas, at Somerville's Southern Kin Code House on Assembly Row.

Behind the bar, there was an American flag painted on the bricklay behind crossed wood and between the liquor display. It played country music and served items like Louisiana Grandad Gumbo, Chicken and Waffles, and Farmhouse Buttermilk Biscuits.

But, like most places in Somerville these days, it was populated by more of a gentrified, hipster-ish crowd.

Roughly a half an hour late, Ketlie arrived, profusely apologized and wanted to know immediately about the scrimmage from earlier that day.

Then she asked about how Lukas performed earlier that afternoon. 

He dropped an interception, but one of his former teammates from Everett High, Jason Maitre, made a diving pass breakup toward the end of the live portion.

She beamed ("Jason is like his little brother"). She has never missed a single practice, game, or workout that she was not allowed to attend.

She saw her now-5-foot-11, 185-pound son become the first Football Bowl Subdivision player in the last 10 years to compile at least 80 tackles, seven interceptions, 10 pass breakups and two forced fumbles in a single regular season. It happened in his first year as a starter, and now has him on the radar of every NFL scout.

"Lukas is different," she said.

When Denis was 5 years old, he cried because he could not play football with his older brother Dimitris, four years Lukas' elder.

"You can't be a part of the practice!" she remembers telling him. "You're too small!"

But Denis waited until it was over and ran conditioning drills afterward, instead.

By fourth and fifth grade, Denis was playing street football at Glendale Park and Chelsea with bigger kids, even five or six years older.

"You're too little to play with those boys," she said, then added. "He was always playing with people older than him."

When Everett played King Philip's Pop Warner A team with the chance to compete in Nationals in Orlando, his team lost. Ketlie, who had already purchased the tickets, asked why he wasn't crying like all the other kids.

"I'm a football player," he told her. "I'm not trying to get to Disney World. I'm trying to get to Foxboro."

"I'm still puzzled," she said of her son's reaction. "I'm still to this day puzzled."

His sophomore year, Lukas had straight A's, but Ketlie threatened to pull him off the team because he got a B in math to ruin his perfect marks. It was not an idle threat.

"This is football," she said. "Know the rules. Study."

It paid off. Lukas' name is still engraved at the Madeliene English School Library, picked for the best students in eighth grade.

But Ketlie doesn't like parents who push football on their children. It has to be their choice, she said.

"I don't like parents that buy their kids all this swag," she said. "They slack off. If it's their choice, then they will go by the rules better."

Swag was not something Ketlie experienced much growing up. A native of Haiti's capital, Port au Prince, her mother, Fernande Jean-Pierre, died when when she was 16. After the 1991 coup d'état when President Jean-Claude Duvalier fled the country, there were riots, kidnappings. Ketlie's father, Adrien, sent her to the United States.

"We had a good life (before the coup)," Ketlie said. "We (owned) hotels."

She lived under foster care in Norwalk, Conn. She recalls ironing her bedsheets and tucking underneath them for warmth.

She spoke little of her marriage to Lukas' father, only calling it a "nightmare."

But Adrien stayed in Haiti and kept in touch with Lukas, visiting often.

"Lukas was very attached to (his grandfather)," Keitle said.

Five years ago, Adrien died of cancer.

"If (my father) was here, he would be alive," Ketlie said. She did not take Denis to the funeral because it was too dangerous.

His freshman year of high school, Denis could play almost any position on the field. He was the backup quarterback to Jonathan DiBiaso in 2011 on Everett's Super Bowl-winning team. By his senior year, Denis led the Crimson Tide to the Division 1 Super Bowl, where they lost to Xaverian, 38-29.

Again, Denis didn't cry, and again, Keitle could not figure it.

"I want you to have a ring," she said.

"I'm not sorry," he said. "I did my part. I feel bad for my teammates, but I think God has something bigger for me."

That year, he did not win ESPN Boston's "Mr. Football" award.

"He said it doesn't matter. 'Mr. Football' isn't going to take him where he wants to go. He was really, really strong for me," Keitle said. "I actually don't know what to say. That is above me. He does not believe in what Jack and John do or say. He believes in work. Growing up as a man of the house made him so serious."

Denis is on track to graduate early with a Cum Laude from BC's Carroll School of Management, the fifth-best business school in the nation. He is a lock to be drafted if he gets through the season without injury.

Keitle still frets over his prospects or anything that could risk his eligibility. She insisted on splitting the check because of any potential NCAA repercussions.

She worries about high school recruits who get lured in by the glitz of major programs.

"These kids don't think about (that)," she said. "You have the mentality of a big school. That's not the attitude of work. Also, you go to Boston College, there is life after football. Anybody that goes to Boston College, there is a bright future after the NFL."

Over the course of the two hours, she praised coach Steve Addazio, co-defensive coordinators Anthony Campanile and Jim Reid, and his coach at Everett, John DiBiaso. She did the same for former defensive line coach Ben Albert, who recruited Denis to The Heights, radiating old world wisdom and an immigrant's pride.

"I believe that," she said. "I believe that in America, the sky's the limit. There is no limit."