High school football player Emmanuel Crawford escapes child slavery en route to stardom

GROVE, Oklahoma — Emmanuel Crawford didn’t want to get back into the boat. 

As a child slave, he didn’t have a choice.

Working mostly on his hands and knees as a toddler, Crawford often bailed water out of a leaky, wooden fishing canoe with a coffee can. Then he was forced into the brown, murky water of Lake Volta, underneath the canoe, to untangle fishing nets from submerged tree branches.