I'm not sure if an AF would have made much of a difference since he seems to have been loved by a lot of people and he probably had a load of big brothers (9 kids in the family, oldest at 29) and a dad who just comes across as the cool dad who's as involved as anyone would like a dad to be. But if you periodically send a kid off to an age-segregated environment, there's only so much that his circle of family and friends can do. The father does express regret at one point that he hadn't pulled Sammy out of that school and he certainly should have done something sooner considering all the issues he'd been having. |