Football has helped Keith Jenkins overcome adversity. Now he’s a role model at Martin Luther King High School.

What started as a joyous Friday-morning ritual quickly descended into chaos when Keith Jenkins had his first seizure on the way to school in his father’s car.

Jenkins, now a senior offensive lineman for Martin Luther King High School, was just a sophomore back then.

Last week, the 6-foot, 240-pounder helped the Cougars (7-1, 6-0) win the Public League Liberty Division title, just two seasons after winning one league game.

“[Winning] just filled me with such happiness,” Jenkins said after a recent practice, “because I got to see all the pieces of the puzzle come together slowly.”

“I never knew I was going to touch a high school football field [again],” he added later. “I thought I was done with football.”

Jenkins was diagnosed with epilepsy about a month after his first seizure during an already tumultuous time when one of his cousins had been accidentally shot and killed.

With support from family, friends, and his football team, however, Jenkins, who attends Parkway Northwest High School, pushed ahead.

“Even though I was going through that low part in my life,” Jenkins said, “I was never alone.

“Having good people around me made me the man I am today who is someone with a more mature perspective on life than a lot of kids my age.”

Jherran Mines enjoyed Friday mornings. It was his day off, and he would drive his kids to school and stop at Dunkin’ on the way.

“That was kind of our thing,” Mines said in a phone interview.

Things went awry, however, after Jenkins says he was overcome by the sudden urge to sleep.

Suddenly, one of his arms extended forward and locked as he sat in the front passenger’s seat.

“I thought that he was goofing around because the kids can be silly,” Mines said.

His daughter, Jaelynn Mines, was in the backseat and said, “No, Dad, he’s not playing.”

Mines, who works as a behavioral technician in a hospital, pulled over as cars sped by on Stenton Avenue just a few blocks from his son’s school.

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“My heart’s racing, I’m scared to death, but I know I have to react,” he said, “so I jumped out of the car and ran to his side.”

Mines rolled Jenkins on his side inside the car and watched as saliva poured from his mouth.

“It was the worst experience of my life,” Mines said.

Jenkins said it was almost more painful for him to wait for more than a month to receive a diagnosis.

After his father took him to the hospital that day, Jenkins was sent home and told to follow up with specialists. Various tests and scans followed.

“I really didn’t even know what [epilepsy] was at first,” Jenkins said.

“It was really the hardest month of my life. … It felt like my whole world came crashing down.”

Perhaps what helped Jenkins press forward was something he learned after the death of his cousin, Suhail Gillard, the Mastery North 18-year-old who police say was accidentally shot and killed by his twin brother in 2019.

“That was difficult because you never expect your parent to wake you up talking about someone who you grew up with, slept in the same room with, went on vacation with, had passed away,” Jenkins said.

“It was hard from that mental aspect, but, at the same time, he didn’t get the opportunity to live out the rest of his life, so I have to make sure I’m on point and doing everything I can in the classroom to make my life successful because I have the chance to live.”

Mines says his son has always been sweet, sensitive, and kind. In fact, that’s why Mines and his wife, Tiffany Robinson, put Jenkins in football at around eight years old.

“We thought we had to toughen him up a little bit,” Mines said with a chuckle. It didn’t take long for Jenkins to fall in love with the sport.

In the aftermath of the epilepsy diagnosis, however, Jenkins wasn’t allowed to play football or engage in offseason workouts.

He exercised on his own by running near the family’s home in the Northeast, but he missed his teammates.

After waiting more than six months, Jenkins said his doctor finally cleared him just before his junior year.

“Those are my brothers,” he said. “It helped me to be back out there with my family. That helped me a lot.”

Football isn’t much fun, however, when your team loses nearly every game.

In 2021, King beat Olney, 6-2, in the final game of the season. It was the team’s only win that year. In fact, the Cougars (1-7, 1-4 in 2021) scored just 19 points in eight games that season.

Complications related to the pandemic, King coach Malik Jones said, were partly to blame.

King has cooperative sponsorships with five area high schools. During the pandemic, Jones said, his team was short-handed several times when players from other schools were forced to sit because of each school’s COVID-19 protocols.

Instead of forfeiting those games, Jones chose to give his younger players experience. Perhaps those early lumps also built character. Last year, the Cougars won just one of five league games and went 4-8 overall.

This season, King is undefeated in the Pub. The Cougars beat West Philadelphia High, 34-22, last week to win their first division title since 2018. This week, Jenkins and Co. face Frankford at 7 p.m. on Friday in the first round of the Class 5A Pub playoffs at the Germantown Supersite. Postseason play has been Jenkins’ motivation for months.

“I hate losing more than I like winning,” said Jenkins. “I never wanted to feel the pain of being a loser again. That stuck with me the whole offseason.”

Jones credits Jenkins, who is a captain, with much of the team’s turnaround, and says teammates look up to him like an older brother. Jenkins also has tutored teammates academically.

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“I wanted to leave a legacy where my ninth graders will be talking about me to their ninth graders,” said Jenkins, who has received some interest from Division II and III coaches.

Playing college football might be nice, but Mines says he cares more about the man, the leader, and the student his son has become.

“I am extremely proud of him,” Mines said. “I feel like this young man is an extraordinary person and has a really bright future. He’s really a genuine kid, and he’s very strong-willed. He just focuses on what matters to him, and I absolutely love that about him more than anything else. … I’m just proud to be his dad.”