Penncrest's Jerry Boyer still beating the odds

DORITA BOYER cries in the stands when she watches her son Jerry play football. She can't help it. It brings her back to the times in the neonatal intensive care unit, looking down at Jerry's tiny chest rapidly pounding, praying that this one lives. She thinks back when Jerry would curl his tiny hand around the tip of her index finger each time she poked it through the incubator.

Jerry looks at the pictures today and he wants to cry. He can't believe the infant in the photograph swaddled in cotton and tape, with breathing tubes running from his nose, was once him - all 2 pounds, 7 ounces. It's hard to believe, because the 5-10, 200-pound Penncrest High junior tailback/linebacker is a wrecking machine, pound-for-pound one of the strongest players in Delaware County, and a leading reason the Lions are off to such a historic start this season.

Jerry Boyer considers himself blessed and lucky. Dorita can't help but look at Jerry as a gift. He is the only surviving child of Dorita's four children - all born premature. His older brother was stillborn and never given a name. His two older sisters, Letisha and Angelica, didn't survive. Letisha died 3 hours after she was born. She weighed 14 ounces. Angelica lived longer, though she weighed 1 pound, 4 ounces when she was born, and died Dec. 28, 1991, just 10 days shy of her second birthday. And 2 years ago, Jerry lost his father, Jerry Sr., to pneumonia.

"Yes, you can say I've been through hell," said Dorita, a local merchandiser. "The tough part was every single day being pregnant with Jerry was scary. You never know. That's why I say he's my gift, and a gift from God. Maybe that's why I cry some games.

"When his father first mentioned that he wanted Jerry playing football when he was 4, there was no way I was going to let my baby play. Now look at him. He's lucky to be alive. Every time I watch him play, I get emotional, because of what he's been through. I'm just so proud of him; he's still my little peanut."

The little peanut his teammates happen to call "Hammer," because of how he slams through opponents, both on offense and defense. Dorita also calls him "Hammer," because "he hammered his way into the world. I was in labor for 2 days and felt like he was going to be 10 pounds."