Flint Star: Hope & Basketball

This week I have talked about failed dreams and a lot of negative aspects of living in Flint so I wanted to wrap things up by talking about the hope that hoops provides it’s residents.

One of the ways that basketball provides kids hope is the adulation kids receive for excelling at this sport. High school games in Flint have upwards of 6,000 fans come out to games and it provides kids a way to gain positive notoriety in their community.

A Genesee County Job Corps Basketball Player told Davenport that, “you can’t describe the feeling that you get. Everybody’s anticipating you to do these things. They are hyping you up and you can’t believe the moment will ever get here. Once you are into that locker room and you see your jersey sitting by your locker… the butterflies that go through your stomach. At first it’s like, so scared, you don’t know what to do and you don’t want to let these people down but once you put that jersey on you become Superman. It’s like I’m invincible. You can’t describe those feelings when everybody quiet in the locker room, you say your little prayer, and then it’s time to actually go out. Go out on the floor where all these people, hundred of people, are waiting to cheer your name, your school out. Man, it’s so surreal. You probably couldn’t believe it if you weren’t there. You hit that big bucket, you hit that first bucket, the whole crowd goes wild. From that moment on you feel like you can’t miss, like you are invincible.”

You don’t need to be a star player to enjoy the benefits of play ball. A  Flint High School kid told Davenport in the documentary that he goes “to the open gym every day. If I ain’t hooping then I’m going to be doing the wrong thing. I’d rather have a basketball in my hand than a gun.”

Athletes like Mateen Cleaves have lifted up by his community because he refuses to forget where he came from and he tries to take care of the people he grew up with. Cleaves thinks the future for Flint looks bright because, “we’ve got kids from five or six years old doing things that I can do with the ball. When I come back, and going through the old hood and the playground watching kids, and watching kids from Flint, it’s out cold. We’re going to keep guys going to college and pros for years to come in Flint. The future looks so bright man. You’ve got kids that can falt out put the ball in the basketball. They are doing stuff I couldn’t do when I was that young. The future is looking bright but we just gotta’ keep them active. We gotta’ keep them into sports and make sure they know that they gotta hit the books. As far as basketball wise they can play. We gotta’ keep them away from guns. Keep them away from drugs. Keep them away from all that negative stuff and keep them on that positive vibe. Guys like myself and other pros, and some of the younger guys right under me, continue go back and help these kids. Flint, we’re going to stay as one of the top basketball cities in the nation.

Here’s to hoping that more athletes from Flint turn out like Cleaves and are willing to help out their community once they make their millions in the NBA or NFL.

Flint Star: Pro Athletes Need to Give Back to Flint

Something I found shocking while watching this documentary is that despite having countless members of their community make millions in the pros, not enough of these athletes are willing to give money back to Flint.

Flint Northwestern Football Coach Dan Wilkinson told Davenport that, “a lot of the stars that we have, that’s in the pros, and have been in the pros, around here in Flint we don’t even see ‘em. They might come back here and there, give a party of two, I’ve noticed that you look on tv, some of these sports programs, and you look at what guys like Steve Smith and some of these other pro athletes have done for the colleges they have went to, for their hometown high schools. It’s time for these young guys to wake up. You started here, you should give something back to the community more than a basketball camp, football camp or whatever.”

Coach Ernest Wingate backed up the statements of Wilkinson and told Davenport that pro athletes should “give the kids some discipline, some guidance about life after sports. Make them aware and be proud of the names their parents have given them. Let them know they aren’t all going to become pro athletes but just try to become better people, better citizens, better men and better ladies. How are we to know who’s going to make it athletically, but we should all be hoping that they are going to make it as people

Former NFL wide receiver Daryl Turner and Flint native said that “athletes now-a-days, some of them throw camps, some of them don’t. On the majority, it’s minus. Most of them don’t. You have a lot of players that want to give back through a party, a barbeque, I myself, my way of giving back we put a basketball floor outside the Brennan Center.”

Later on in his interview, Turner said, “as far as these guys not knowing how to give back, they know how. I just think in most cases they just don’t want to. You have gentleman in the year 2000 who are making on a base salary are making over one million dollars. I don’t think that’s much you can take out of your million dollars to give back to your community. Even if it is a gym, some weights, as long as you are trying to give back it can get respect.”

A local flint youth sounds bitter about rich athletes forgetting the people and community they grew up with. One frustrated high school kid told Marcus that “man, all the people that came from Flint to play basketball could have put something to give back to the community or someting. They could have had people picking up trash, putting up buildings. I feel like if I go I’ll be doing some of that. It don’t make no sense for them to go somewhere, this is where they came from, and leave us all behind..”

This frustration with feeling deserted have led some to feel that it’s okay to pull a robin hood and steal from the rich and give to the poor – even if it’s their famous Flint natives. Some people interviewed in this video feel that their “ghetto card should be revoked” and that they should be robbed when they show up in town again.

A Flint resident told the camera’s that “you come by here and don’t even offer to buy as a beer? I’ll tell you what we’ll do, I’ll rob you and buy my own beer.”

Later on this same person told Marcus that “you gotta’ have love in your ownheart to look out for people, man. If you got all that money it ain’t going to hurt you to give back $50,000.”

This resentment stems from athletes like Eddie Robinson who has lost his perspective on life once he signed his fat contract with the Chicago Bulls. Robinson tried to explain his situation by telling Davenport that “you gotta pay yo’ bills. I’m staying in a million dollar house right now, so I gotta pay bills on this. My car costs 300 something thousand. I gotta pay bills on that. There ain’t really a lot of money floating around in here. People ain’t really educated enough to know that.”

Pardon me for not being educated on being a rich athlete, Eddie.

The problem is that Robinson only comes across as looking ignorant to the problems his community is facing. While you are living in excess the people who you grew up with are struggling just to fill their bellies.

It’s no wonder that members of the Flint community are full of anger for some of their famous athletes.

Corey Underwood – Best Player in NYC?

Checking out the stats for the site this weekend it’s become clear that people love to hear about the NBA Draft and young players that haven’t become famous for balling in the League yet. While checking out the results of the most popular referring searches on Yahoo and MSN, Joakim Noah and NBA Draft are both in the top five of my search results with both searches sending me well over 100 visitors each.

With that in mind I feel readers of this site should know about a playground legend in New York that’s about to blow up in a big way. His name is Corey Underwood and according to Elevation Mag he’s poised to be the next big thing.

The Smokescreen Has Begun

Each spring NBA teams set up smokescreens so that other teams around the League don’t know what player they want in the Draft. Even though the Raptors have the top pick in the Draft and don’t need to worry about other teams stealing the player they want, it looks like they will keep fans guessing all the way up to draft night about whether they will draft LeMarcus Aldridge, Andrea Bargnani or if they will deal the pick.

Sam Cassell Has Big Cajones

A picture says a thousand words…

What Could’ve Been…

By Brian Taylor

Yesterday at the office, I was “youtubing” around when I ran across a link for the old Washington Bullets.

What I saw damn near brought me to tears people.

What the clip showed was a young, vibrant 1995 edition of the Washington Bullets featuring an All-Star caliber Juwan Howard, a pre-injury Chris Webber and a pre-Portland Rasheed Wallace.

Granted they only had a 39-43 record, could you believe how dominant they’d be if they stuck together? Damn you free agency!!!

Click here to view the video clip.

Raptors: I. Am. Colangelo!

By Jeff Wong

I’ve been spending the past couple of weeks working on an article for another website. Rest easy, my legions of fans (both of you), I’m not leaving Hoops Addict. With Ryan’s blessing, I’ve been focusing on the NBA GM Fixit Contest, in which I will compete with two other bloggers for the GM position of the Toronto Raptors. The contest starts June 5, and the three Raptors entries will be posted on the morning of June 7. Here are some afterthoughts on my own work.