A coach involved in a local, basketball-centered ministry took issue Tuesday with a long-standing city policy that prohibits organized basketball teams from using recreation centers after basketball season ends.
Theris Howard, who coaches 40 kids at the Robert Hope Community Center in the Plateau community, said he understands the city’s policy, but says the rule hurts the “community kids” he mentors on the basketball court.
“I’m asking you to put aside your differences,” he said. “Put aside race, creed, color and put yourselves in a kid’s position.”
Although he’s been using the gym at the community center for about six years, Howard said he was recently notified that the team couldn’t practice there after basketball season ends. The Vigor High School and University of South Alabama graduate said the team is an outlet for a number of the kids he works with.
“This is bigger than basketball,” he told the council. “This is a refuge for these kids.”
Howard said he understands their point of view because he was “one of these kids” himself. Born and raised in the Africatown community, Howard was kicked off the Vigor basketball team because of his attitude. He later earned a basketball scholarship to Bishop State Community College.
In his address to the council, he asked the city to find common ground with him regarding his team practicing at the center throughout the year.
Recreation Superintendent Shadrach Collins admitted Howard’s situation is “a little bit different,” but said the policy is in place for a reason. It’s important to protect players from the community who might not have the chance to play organized basketball at the travel, AAU, or other levels and would be displaced by other organized practices, he said.
“We allow organized practices during the season,” Collins added. “We go back to open play after that.”
Howard said the community center in Plateau is not busy when his team practices, but Collins said it’s a citywide policy and said attendance at other centers could vary from time to time.
Council Vice President Levon Manzie asked Howard and Collins to further discuss the issue and try to reach a compromise.
During the discussion of a $39,589 contract for lighting at the Herndon Sage Park basketball court at the same meeting, Councilman John Williams asked Mayor Sandy Stimpson about the possibility of building basketball courts in other parts of the city.
“That one is full all the time,” Williams said. “We had talked about more.”
Stimpson said it isn’t something the administration had discussed in the recent past, so he wasn’t sure, but quickly reminded Williams of the basketball court being built at Figures Park with funding from New Orleans Pelicans’ forward and Mobile native DeMarcus Cousins.
In other business, councilors presented Eddie Irby and other volunteers with proclamations recognizing their efforts to clean up veterans’ gravesites at the Oaklawn Cemetery.
The effort included a controlled burn.
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