Sergeant Tyrone Hassel III

And it was so successful, I feel like I want everybody to know about him.

So I won't ever stop.

talking about.

And it's tough being good in these communities sometimes.

Yeah, when you come from where we come from, you just don't have a child that succeeds to that level.

It's exceptional.

Definitely.

From the classroom to the locker room at Benton Harbor High School, the story is much the same.

What I knew about Tyrone is he was gonna show up every day, he was gonna show up with a good attitude, and I wasn't gonna have to worry about grades or misbehavior or anything like that.

Very respectful, willing to do whatever it took.

He would play as hard as you needed him to play.

From there, he moved on to Grand Valley State University, where Hassel earned a scholarship to study mechanical engineering until he decided to switch gears.

I was kind of nervous and a little bit, I should say I was probably scared of my son going to the army.

You didn't show him too much of that.

No, I couldn't.

You know, I'm dad still, so he actually thanked me once for supporting him with his decision.

A decision that would take the sergeant away from Benton Harbor.

Definitely when he moved away, he definitely didn't want to come back.

He was motivated to do better.

You know, he lived here and he knew it wasn't nothing going on.