Community organizers use old school street ball for neighborhood change

Hoops agency

08/25/2010 10:00 PM

By GREG SKINNER
Editor

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Players from Englewood and Near North watch a fast break on the court at Seward Park Saturday during the fourth annual Hoops in the Hood Cross City Tournament. Seward Park is the only park in the Chicago Park District with four available courts for the tournament to host hundreds of kids.
Photos by GREG SKINNER/Staff



Players from East Garfield work their way through a catered lunch from Portillo’s Saturday during the fourth annual Hoops in the Hood Cross City Tournament.

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Alvaro Obregon has been running a street basketball program for 11 years and has never played a game.

Accordingly, it should come as no surprise that Obregon had no idea that basketball was invented to give young men something productive to do. In fact, he said if it weren’t for the love of basketball shown by the kids in Chicago neighborhoods, he would prefer to run a baseball league.

“But it’s not about me,” he said.

Saturday Obregon joined coaches, mentors and scores of Chicago’s young men for the Hoops in the Hood Cross City Tournament held at Seward Park. The day of single-elimination tournament basketball ended a fourth summer of sports-based community intervention designed to ease some of the tensions in life surrounded by gangs and their boundaries.

By playing basketball on city courts and streets turned into courts, gang hotspots of a neighborhood can be closed, said Keri Blackwell, a program officer for the nonprofit neighborhood development company LISC – a partner in Saturday’s tournament.

In Obregon’s mind, basketball is best thought of as a safety strategy built on human familiarities discovered while playing basketball against other blocks and other neighborhoods. After playing a game or two of basketball they begin to know each other.

“They’re not bangers,” Obregon said. “They’re basketball players.”

Each of the 10 neighborhood leagues playing in Saturday’s tournament takes their summer basketball program in a specific direction. Some neighborhoods play indoor courts, some play outdoors, some keep at it for 10 weeks and others for five. Little Village added an arts component to their program so that kids not interested in basketball have options as well.

One thing they all have in common is an effort to provide young men in Chicago’s neighborhoods a chance for something other than gang culture on a Friday night during summer when gang activity peaks for tens of thousands of members.

It’s about taking ownership of spaces and transforming communities from that level, said Robert Castaneda, executive director of Little Village’s Beyond the Ball. When kids with or without families participate in a positive activity in a specific place they take more responsibility of the court area and surrounding space.

Castaneda wants basketball played outside so people can see it and know that something basically good and healthy is going on.

Whether the games are played safely inside or on the street as a public statement, For Sean O’Farrell from the Back or the Yards Neighborhood Committee, summer basketball is about visiting nearby foreign streets and occupying kids in Chicago.

“No idle hands in the devils playground is time well spent,” O’Farrell said.

Players from East Garfield live near blocks controlled by factions of Vice Lords and Insane C-notes. Their team beat Little Village to advance into semi-final play Saturday. Players agree with some of the primary claims and goals of those taking time to try and make a difference.

During a catered Portillo’s lunch break in the Seward Park Field house, 18-year-old Andre Jackson said he has gotten to know other young men through time spent on the court, which has made life a bit better.

“It’s easier to go places,” Jackson said.

Jackson’s teammate in the 15-18 brackets agreed with the basic that built familiarity with others through a game of basketball organized in the name of peace. Traveling down the block you see someone and they look familiar and you can pass thinking “I know you from hoops,” Lamar Taylor said.

Castaneda said the gangs that have driven people from public can and will back off when they see public desire and ownership for a space. Gangs don’t live in a vacuum without influence from the community. Gangs see it as a good thing too, he said.

“You can break cycles,” Castaneda said.

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