Assembling a dream team

A hundred young men and boys have shown up on this Friday night for three or four hours of basketball, and the gym smells like it.

Twenty guys at a time are running up and down the courts, dribbling, passing, yelling, blocking, laughing, jumping. Swishing.

It's Open Gym Night, and everyone, it seems, knows the drill. The sign-in sheet's on the table at the entrance. It's all free, but you can't play til your name's on the list and you've joined a team. Teens and older guys play in the main gym; youngsters go to the little one. First come, first served on the courts. If your team wins, you keep playing. Lose? Stand on the sidelines until it's your turn again.

No fights. No gang colors. No trash. Respect the people and the property.

Mike Daniels, pastor of mission-oriented Enoch Baptist Church, calls this weekend ritual at Bayside Middle School "organized chaos," but it's one of Virginia Beach's success stories - a model partnership involving a faith community, a school and the city.

It started with Daniels, who had an idea, took responsibility for it and got his community behind him. But this is necessarily a team effort.

Tracie Ford, a Norfolk Detention Center guidance counselor and church member, is there most Friday nights and Saturday afternoons to unlock the gym doors, enforce the rules, hug the children, listen to the teenagers and, she hopes, empower them to make good decisions when they leave.

Anyone in the Virginia Beach community is welcome. The school allows the use of its gym; the church provides the basketballs and volunteers and pays one person to supervise; two Parks and Recreation Department employees also oversee activities.

Initially, Daniels simply wanted help getting a basketball goal for western Bayside's neighborhood kids. There was "a lot of mischievous crime going on," he said. "I wanted to get some of the guys on the street and keep them from joining a gang." He figured a place to play basketball in a supervised setting would help.

Daniels is a go-getter, one of those people who sees a need and figures out a way to help. He's organized ministries to help the elderly and single mothers with home and car maintenance. Under his leadership, "community days" have drawn thousands for a meal. Hundreds of children who couldn't afford new school clothes or a backpack got them in August because Daniels saw a need.

He does it because his faith calls him to do so. Said Mayor Will Sessoms: "They don't come any finer."

The two met when Sessoms was campaigning for mayor four years ago. Daniels asked him for help getting a basketball goal. Sessoms directed him to the schools and the Parks and Recreation Department, and the pastor struck a deal.

Church members distributed 1,000 fliers in nearby neighborhoods about the open gym. Daniels organized a three-on-three tournament.

He said he was surprised by the youngsters who showed up. They weren't the ones in trouble, the ones he worried would be lured away by gangs. They were good kids looking for a safe place to hang out. Some needed guidance and mentoring; some simply wanted to play basketball in an air-conditioned gym with wood floors.

It was "something to do to keep me out of trouble," said Dakwun Garrett, 22, who has been playing regularly on Friday nights for a couple of years. "Good stress relief, too."

Word spread. Police, who initially came to make sure there was no trouble, saw that they didn't need to stay. Church members came to play and to mentor. Parents learned they could drop off their kids and come back for them at 10 p.m.

The city's cost? $5,000 a year for the part-time recreation employees and $1,500 for classes in dance and arts and crafts on Saturdays.

Ford, the guidance counselor, wants to make sure these kids don't see the inside of the Detention Center. "On Fridays and Saturdays," she said, "I'm here doing God's work."

Her hope - and Daniels' - is to reach the children when they're young, instill morals, "teach them to think past today," enforce boundaries and give them hope.

By the time they're 18, Ford said, they have the foundation to be successful. "These are our doctors. These are our lawyers. I want them to be able to take care of us when we get old."

Candy Hatcher is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. Email: candy.hatcher@pilotonline.com.