Fifteen-year-old Erica Matthews loves playing basketball. Every day after school she heads over to the Austin YMCA to play with other students on a co-ed team that runs year-round.
Damien Robinson, 17, who also plays basketball at the Y, said he just likes to play for fun. The program, he said, has helped him develop a better attitude and outlook on life.
But as much as they enjoy basketball, Robinson and Matthews said they wouldn’t feel comfortable playing anywhere else but the Y, as many basketball courts in the community have become popular gang hangouts — where more gambling is done than dribbling.
It costs $2 a day to play basketball at the Austin YMCA. (Photo/Katherine Randall)
The Austin YMCA basketball program, said Matthews, keeps youth safe and shows them there’s more to life than street life, which others involved in the program list as primary goals.
Fred Eaton, sports director at the Austin YMCA, said about 150 children, from ages 12 to 18, play on 17 basketball teams at the Y.
Growing up, Eaton said he spent a lot of his free time at the Y. The community, he said, has changed significantly since he was a child.
“When I was growing up, it wasn’t an everyday thing to come shooting around here,” said Eaton, mentioning a 14-year-old Douglass Academy High School student who’d been involved with the basketball program who was recently shot, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
Eaton said he fears for the children’s safety on a regular basis — that they might get caught in gunfire on their way to or from school. Without the basketball program, he said, “there would be a lot of kids left out there in the streets.”
John Callhoun, a 17-year-old senior at Orr Academy High School, said had it not been for basketball, he could have ended up like his brothers, who were enticed by the streets and often in trouble.
“It’s gonna help me stay off the street,” said Callhoun, who said he hopes to one day play basketball for Duke University. “It’s been a good experience,” he said.
Montel Brown, coach of Callhoun’s team, the Calumet Crushers, said playing basketball gives youth something else to focus on besides some of the negative influences they might encounter.
“It occupies their minds,” he said. “We are showing these kids more things than just the streets.”
Players shoot hoops several days a week at the Austin YMCA. (Photo/Katherine Randall)
The Crushers are one of the many teams that rent the Austin YMCA gym for basketball practices. Brown said his team travels on a regular basis, which gives players an opportunity to experience what it’s like in other neighborhoods besides their own.
In addition to keeping children off the streets, said Brown, playing basketball also teaches teamwork, responsibility and discipline.
“It’s letting them know that when you dedicate yourself to something good, good comes out of it,” said Brown.
He said high school and college basketball recruiters were even noticing some of his players. The possibility of getting recruited to play basketball, he said, serves as another motivator for students to continue their studies — knowing that scholarships may await them if their game is good enough.
“It gives them a drive to do something better,” said Brown.
Eaton, who’s been working at the Austin YMCA since 1991, said some of the youth involved with the basketball program have gone on to become everything from professional basketball players and coaches to lawyers and university professors.
His face lit up as he strolled the long, narrow hallway by his office, pointing to different pictures and newspaper articles in display cases that highlighted some of the successes of the program’s alumni.
Seventeen-year-old Robinson said he’d like to open up his own business someday.
Matthews said she hopes to someday play basketball at the University of Connecticut. With Eaton’s coaching, she said, her game is sure to improve.
“He’s a good coach,” said Matthews. “If you’re dedicated, he will help you be a better player.”
Co-ed teams meet at the Austin Y Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 5:30 to 9 p.m. There are also all-girls and all-boys teams that meet Saturdays, boys from 10 to 11:30 a.m. and girls from 12:30 to 3 p.m. It costs players $2 a day; to sign up, visit the Y, 501 N. Central Ave.
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