Golden – The petite retired schoolteacher worked the Colorado Correctional Center gym like it was her classroom, moving from burglar to forger to wife beater, flashing a smile and offering words of encouragement.
“This is my next profession,” Rosemary LaPorta said. “I want to help these men realize that we really care. They are not scum of the earth, and they are not worthless.”
LaPorta spoke with inmates at the minimum-security prison Friday night as part of a Christian outreach program. Also in the program are Miss America 2003 Erica Harold and Marvis Frazier, the son of a boxing icon, who became a world heavyweight contender himself.
“Not since Alice’s trip to Wonderland has a more eclectic group convened,” said Michelle Farmer, spokeswoman for Operation Starting Line, the prison outreach program designed to help inmates transition from cellblocks to neighborhoods.
The main goal of the national group is to reduce inmate recidivism rates, which are 67 percent nationally and 55 percent in Colorado.
Convicted forger Edward McDaniel, 45, with about one year left on a six-year sentence, was bobbing his head and swaying in rhythm as David Middendorf, a baritone from Uncaged Biker Ministries, sang, “Help me get down on my knees, so I can get back on my feet.”
Local volunteers, including LaPorta, handed out registrations to inmates for an ongoing program in which the volunteers will return to the prison and offer religious and life- skills training.
About 500 Operation Starting Line volunteers from 86 churches will sweep across Colorado, putting on similar programs at 38 jails and prisons, Farmer said.
Celebrities such as Frazier, the son of “Smokin”‘ Joe Frazier, the former world heavyweight champion, offered life stories with religious messages during a three-hour musical and testimonial program for 60 inmates.
Frazier, doing an imitation of famed sports broadcaster Howard Cosell, said that when Muhammad Ali defeated his father after 14 rounds of the “Thrill a in Manila” on Sept. 30, 1975, he vowed to bring the world championship belt back to his family himself. At the time, he was a amateur boxer who was in his father’s corner as the water boy.
In 1980, with 13 professional wins including eight knockouts, the younger Frazier had his chance against heavyweight champ Larry Holmes. But when he was pummeled in the first found, the fight was called. He felt like he had embarrassed the family name, he said.
But his father hugged him and told him he loved him anyway, he said. Frazier told the inmates that despite their failures they, too, had a similar connection with Jesus Christ.
After the meeting, Frazier and Harold were swarmed by inmates asking for autographs.
“It means a lot for people to come to prison,” McDaniel said. “It can get very lonely.”
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-820-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.