“It really didn’t matter about the score,” Dantzler said, two days after attending the Tigers’ 38-3 victory. “I had two players on that field, and it was just exciting to be there.” Those players were also a testament to Dantzler’s life mission. On one sideline was former Whale Branch Early College High School star Nyles Pinckney, now a defensive tackle for the Tigers; on the other sideline, Pinckney’s former high school teammate, Dee Delaney, a defensive back for the Hurricanes.

Growing up, Pinckney participated in the Extra Mile Club, a faith-based mentoring program Dantzler started in 2008 to teach young men integrity and accountability. Delaney began volunteering with the program while at The Citadel, where he earned a business degree before transferring to Miami for his senior year of eligibility.

Extra Mile Club members receive tutoring and Bible study, attend college visits and sports camps, and participate in community-service projects. Three years ago, Dantzler incorporated a traveling AAU football program for boys 12 and under and began mentoring the teams’ female cheerleaders, as well.

Dantzler is now programs director, and his wife, Gaynelle, is executive director of the 501(c) 3 organization. Dantzler said about 160 kids, most of them from northern Beaufort County, currently participate in the Extra Mile Club, and dozens of former participants are currently in college or technical school. He says none of his participants have ever been incarcerated. Pinckney and Delaney epitomize the sort of student-athletes Dantzler seeks to nurture. Both earned the state LIFE academic scholarship, in addition to football scholarships. Both were National Honor Society members and earned college credits while still in high school.

Dantzler said he developed the idea for the Extra Mile Club while watching his son play football at Beaufort High School, which he also attended in the 1980s. “A lot of kids thought football would be their ticket, but many of them really didn’t seem to know how to get there,” Dantzler said. “… I knew a lot of these kids were in single-parent families with no real male presence, and they weren’t always getting the guidance they needed.”

That’s one reason that when students enroll in his cost-free program, their parents have to pledge their commitment, too — for instance, by attending mandatory parent meetings, football games or helping the mentors track their children’s grades. “The things we teach them have to be reenforced when they go home,” Dantzler said. “If the environment at home isn’t good, what we do won’t work.” Dantzler said even adults benefit when they’re pointed in the right direction — a lesson he learned first-hand.

In the early 1990s, Dantzler served in the Army during Desert Shield and Desert Storm but was medically discharged after he was injured in a training exercise while deployed to Iraq. Back in the states, he was a security guard and drove a bread truck for a while. But by the mid-1990s, he was out of work and going through a divorce. Dantzler wanted custody of his three children, but his attorney, Jim Moss of Beaufort, sat him down and leveled with him. “He told me, ‘Chris, if you don’t find a job, that’s not going to happen,’ ” Dantzler recalled. Moss handed him a newspaper opened to the help-wanted ads.

“He told me to close my eyes, run my finger down page and wherever my finger stopped, that’s your job,” Dantzler said. He opened his eyes to a vacancy with Sears’ termite and pest control. Dantzler not only got that job, within a few years, he opened the pest-control company that he still operates. That enterprise also led him back to Gaynelle, his high-school sweetheart. “She had been living in Columbia, and I got a call from her mom for flea service,” Dantzler said. “She told me, ‘Gaynelle can’t stand fleas. I’ve got to get rid of them before she comes home.’ “I said, ‘Wait, Gaynelle’s coming home?’ ” Dantzler made sure sure to schedule the appointment for a Saturday, when he knew Gaynelle would be there.

Soon, they were dating again. They have now been married 13 years and have a daughter of their own. With most of the goals that Dantzler set when he started the Extra Mile Club now accomplished, Gaynelle quit her job in public-health administration to serve as executive director and expand the program. They have designs for a facility that they estimate to cost about $1.2 million. It features study areas, a weight room and football fields. “She left a secure job that paid well so that we could do this together,” Dantzler said. “It takes faith. We don’t have a lot of money, but all of our needs are met and we want to take the Extra Mile Club to the next level.”