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UNC basketball, Easter and the chance for a better life
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Published: April 7, 2009
Last weekend North Carolinians, especially Tar Heel basketball fans, found themselves pulled in all sorts of directions.
Warm sunny weather and all sorts of outdoor activities competed for our time and attention—and reminded us that winter is really over. Palm Sunday, the coming of Easter, and the resulting joyful clutter pulled us toward our churches.
Then there was another religion, basketball and the NCAA Final Four games.
In Durham, something competed with the religion of Easter and the religion of basketball. The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival drew crowds of thousands to see timely and poignant films about real lives and real situations.
Ironically, a major theme of the Film Festival this year was "This Sporting Life." More than 10 sports related films were part of the 100-plus films offered over the four days of the festival.
One of the films, "Hoop Dreams," brought up for me again a haunting question about basketball: Are the young urban playground basketball players' dreams of playing in the NBA good for them? Most of them will never play professional basketball. Most will never play in college. Are their basketball aspirations just one more thing that reduces their chances for a successful and productive life?
Most of the Film Festival's films are new. "Hoop Dreams," which first came out in 1994, was shown as a classic against which the newer films could be compared. "Hoop Dreams" follows William Gates and Arthur Agee, two black high school basketball players who dream of future NBA careers. In the meantime they have to deal with a host of challenges that threaten to derail all hopes for any kind of successful life—poverty, family breakup, academic pressure, dangerous and dysfunctional neighborhoods, and a host of basketball coaches, agents and other actors competing for the opportunity to exploit any player who could help their program win basketball games.
Neither Gates nor Agee made it to the NBA. But basketball was a ticket for both of them to go to college and get away from the dreary lives that would probably been their fate had they not been very good basketball players. (Both Gates and Agee lost an older brother to gun violence in their Chicago neighborhood.)
Basketball was not an easy way out, but it worked for them. Left behind were the large majority of the other young men in the Chicago neighborhoods. They were not good enough players nor prepared academically to go to college. These guys also needed a ticket out.
Last week, William Gates came to Durham to talk about his life after basketball. He is the minister of a church in his old neighborhood. I asked him what could be done to give a chance to kids who lacked his basketball talents. "Our church," he responded, "has programs that reach hundreds of these kids. We surround them with the kind of moral support and character building that will make a difference."
Gates's current commitment to his church and his neighborhood is even more inspiring than his basketball career. But it will not be enough to do what this country ought to do for every young person in this country, whether or not they can play basketball: Give them a fair chance for a good life.
We are back to politics, which reminds me of something that one of the filmmakers said when asked what had changed in the Chicago neighborhoods since the film was made.
"Back then," he said, "if you asked almost any kid what he was going to do when he grew up, he said 'I am going to play basketball in the NBA.' Now they say, 'I am going to play basketball in the NBA or be president of the United States.' Nothing in between."
D.G. Martin is the host of "North Carolina Bookwatch," airing at 5 p.m. Sunday on UNC-TV.
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