HEBRON – Greg Gumbs says he didn’t even know where Maine was when he crawled into his football coach’s car in the summer of 2003 and made the seven-hour trip north from Queens Village, N.Y., to Hebron Academy.

“We came up here and my first day I was just like, ‘Wow, a lot of trees,'” he said.

His younger brother, Jose, tagged along for the ride and was less impressed, but ended up following him to the private boarding school the next year.

Three years later, Greg is attending Bates College and Jose is being recruited by a number of Division I and I-A schools. And they are both grateful for an unlikely connection between Hebron and an inner-city Pop Warner football program for helping to change their future.

Greg got used to the trees after a few days on campus, but he wasn’t sure Hebron Academy was for him. He was homesick and having a tough time adjusting to life in rural Maine.

“But then, once football started and school started going and people started talking to me, I could really see that they care about you,” he said. “Then, once you go home, you start missing the people here.”

Greg also noticed after awhile that he was thinking about his future differently.

“Back home, I wasn’t thinking about going to college, really. I was just going with the flow,” he said. “Then I came up here and everybody was talking about going to college.”

After three years of hard work in the classroom and on the football field at Hebron, Greg is now a freshman at Bates and playing linebacker for the Bobcats.

Gumbs said he wouldn’t be in college, let alone in Maine, if it weren’t for the Queens Falcons, a Pop Warner football program that operates the “Run to Daylight” program. Since 1997, it has been sending young men from the inner-city to top boarding and other private schools. Last year, the Falcons sent 18 of its players to private schools throughout the Northeast.

“The program started off real slow at first,” Greg said. “They sent some kids to Lawrence Academy and then some kids started going to Choate and places like that. Then coach Bigley came up to me one day and asked me about going to Hebron Academy.”

Geoff Bigley, who coached Greg and his younger brother, Jose, for the Queens Falcons, attended Hebron and played football there before graduating in 1992. He noted that New York’s inner-city schools don’t offer athletics to their students, so the “Run to Daylight” program fills a void for many economically disadvantaged youth.

The void for Jose Gumbs was discipline and academic accountability.

“I wasn’t taking school that seriously when I was back home,” Jose said. “Back home, everybody would cut class (because) they didn’t have to worry about sports. There was no football there at all. There’s nobody to get behind you to make sure you do your school work. If you wanted to play for the Falcons, you had to make sure you did your homework before you went to practice.”

Bigley said Greg was the perfect first candidate for the program to send to Hebron, and he figured Jose would follow soon after.

“The Gumbs kids were going to do well no matter where they went. They come from a great family,” said Bigley, who moved to New Jersey and no longer coaches in Queens. “Their father (Fernando) is one of those guys who works round the clock for his family. Their mom (Mayra, both parents emigrated from the Dominican Republic) was a little unsure about Greg heading to school in Maine. But it was a great opportunity for him, and I knew both he and Jose would make the most of it.”

Two more Falcons, Emeka Uwasomba and Grigory Frink, followed the Gumbs’ to Hebron and have helped turn around what had been a losing program for nearly a decade. But Hebron coach Moose Curtis stressed that it isn’t a pigskin pipeline for the school.

“They make sure they’re academically qualified boys that they’re sending out.” Curtis said. “They put their stamp on them.”

The Gumbs’ have put their stamp on Hebron. They led the Lumberjacks to an undefeated season and the Evergreen League championship last year

“Hebron’s been good for them and they’ve been very good for the school,” Curtis said. “They’re great leaders, especially off the field.”

Jose is creating a buzz on and off campus as a tailback, free safety and kick and punt returner. He’s drawn interest from Navy, Oregon, Maine, UMass and Holy Cross.

Three years ago, Jose didn’t even consider a football scholarship an possibility.

“I’d never thought about going to college for football, but my whole mindset changed here,” Jose said. “This is a life-changing experience here.”