THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 14, 1996 TAG: 9605140033
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Long : 171 lines
Money is one way Corey L. Etheridge measures the success of ``Nighthawk Basketball,'' the books-and-hoops after-school program he runs at the Effingham Street YMCA.
Not his money, though.
When Etheridge began opening the gym on weekday afternoons in January, kids would thrust wads of bills into his hands, for him to hold while they played ball. Thick wads. Like in the movies.
It sure wasn't lawn-mowing money. There aren't many lawnmowers where these teenagers come from: the squat brick apartment houses of low-income Washington Park, a couple of blocks south of the Y, on the other side of Interstate 264. It was no secret that after-school jobs for more than a couple of the kids involved shady dealings.
A few months later, Etheridge doesn't see that kind of money anymore. What he does see most days are the same boys, 10 and 20 and sometimes 30 of them, ages 10 to 17, obviously hungry for a place to hang out after school other than street corners with unsavory friends or in front of the television with Jenny and Montel and Oprah and Ricki.
To be there, the boys even endure a brief required ``study hall'' most days before Etheridge rolls out the basketballs. And they know that if they skip school, they can't come to the gym that day - and can't play again until a penance is paid. Like mopping the gym floor.
``It's a better place to be than out on the street,'' said Demeko ``Cheeko'' Baines, a 17-year-old enrolled in Wilson High School's equivalency-diploma program. ``Be too much stuff going on out there.''
David L. Bullock agreed. A 14-year-old freshman at Wilson, he like Cheeko was a member of the YMCA league-championship team culled from the Nighthawk program.
``You keep out of trouble,'' David said. ``There's really no recreation in Washington Park.''
The concept behind Nighthawk Basketball isn't new - idle hands, the devil's workshop and all that.
Studies have shown that the after-school hours, before parents get home, are prime time for teens and pre-teens to get into criminal mischief and experiment with sex. Everyone's looking for answers to the high numbers of low-income, inner-city youths who break laws, hurt others and themselves through drugs and violence, and get pregnant before they should.
The hope is busy youngsters won't have as much time to get into trouble.
Critics ridiculed President Clinton when he included ``midnight basketball'' programs as part of his anti-crime initiatives. Not Etheridge. He has seen such programs operating in New York and Washington, and thinks they'd work great with Portsmouth's kids.
``They'd be so exhausted, they'd go right home and fall asleep,'' he said. ``They wouldn't have time to hang on the street.''
Such a program might come later. When Winston L. Myers II, executive director of the Effingham Street YMCA, turned to Etheridge in January, it was to begin an after-school activity. The Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority had come up with a $38,400 state grant for activities aimed at Washington Park youth.
Etheridge, a YMCA staff member, had run other Y programs. His being a former semi-pro football player and national basketball slam-dunk champion gave him credibility with the kids.
``It was a good marriage,'' Myers said.
Etheridge got the job on a Monday. He had three days to set up the program.
He began with a list of Washington Park homes with children ages 14 to 17 - later expanded to include age 10 as more youngsters asked to join. Etheridge knocked on doors in 20-degree weather, handing out fliers. He met the school buses in the afternoons, armed with more fliers.
Almost 50 boys signed up. They hadn't been able to use the nearby Y gym before, since they weren't paying members.
``When I first got this program,'' Etheridge said, ``I was told these kids were bad, had bad attitudes, wouldn't listen to authority - they were just crooks and thieves.''
Etheridge found this to be true about many of the boys - some were on probation with juvenile authorities. But he also found many of them to be smart and funny, and receptive to what he had to offer.
``No one took the time to tell them they cared, no one took the time to tell them life's not like on TV,'' Etheridge said. ``You're always going to have some bad seeds. Most of the time, I try and turn the bad seeds into my leaders.''
Not all the boys came every day.
But eventually the money wads decreased. Some who were out of school went back, some saw their grades go up, some for the first time asked about college. What began as several small, suspicious cliques arguing with each other turned into one cohesive group, helped along by the friendly, firm, chiding, encouraging and accessible Etheridge.
``He's like a good role model for us,'' David said. ``His attitude.''
Etheridge calls them ``my guys.'' He urged them to phone him with any problems, big or small. And they do.
He has gone to their neighborhood on Sundays to play football with them. Some of the ``guys'' have spent time at his house. He reached into his own pocket to help the basketball-team members buy decent uniforms.
The 24-year-old Etheridge remembers himself at their age, when he had academic and other problems that kept him off teams at Kellam High School in Virginia Beach despite his athletic talent.
He credits a basketball coach with setting him straight by having high expectations for him, and riding him hard to live up to them.
``He always gave me this look like, `You can do better with your life,' '' Etheridge said.
The coach, Joey B. Caruthers, now teaches physical education at Kempsville Middle School. He was a little taken aback when told the influence Etheridge attributed to him.
``I'm not really surprised that Corey is getting involved in something like this,'' Caruthers said. ``I think he probably looks back on his life and thinks if he did some things differently he could have had some different opportunities. . . . I really admire him for that.''
It's midweek, and there's a lone folding table sitting in the center-jump circle of the Effingham Street YMCA gym floor. Six boys sit around the table with books open in front of them. Most chat quietly, while a couple wielding pencils jot notes on loose-leaf paper or fill in a worksheet.
Usually more are here, the teens say. YMCA staff members and sometimes friends of Etheridge from Norfolk State University tutor the boys in troublesome subjects.
As study halls go, this one won't be confused with a library at Harvard. But from 2:30 to about 3:15 p.m. most days, this is how the Nighthawk Basketball program starts. The message is as important as what homework gets done. ``You can't go anywhere without these books,'' one boy says.
At 3:25 p.m., the boys start folding and stacking their chairs, and carry off the table. Hitching up their fashionably oversized shorts and jeans, they start casual games of ``21'' at one end of the court, H-O-R-S-E at the other. Soon there are enough players to split into five-man teams for a full-court game.
Nothing reallt dramatic about this effort. Just one tiny nibble at the nation's social problems, like uncounted other youth programs here and around the country. Indeed, school and law-enforcement officials haven't noticed any great changes.
But they praised the effort nonetheless.
``It cannot hurt,'' said Lindell Wallace, principal of Wilson High School, the school most of the boys attend. ``Our kids just need that control when they get out of school. . . . And it can't always be the teachers.''
Amber Whittaker, spokeswoman for the Portsmouth Police Department, said police are happy to see anything positive attempted.
``It's an alternative to hanging out on the streets, or doing something else,'' Whittaker said. ``I wish it great success.''
The grant is for a year, but Myers, the Effingham Y's executive director, would like to continue the program regardless.
``I think it's proved one thing to me, that environment has a great effect on how kids behave,'' he said.
``It breaks a lot of myths. It breaks a lot of my own myths, to tell the truth. . . . It's given me some insight into some needs.''
YMCA officials are working with their school counterparts to track the Nighthawk Basketball participants for three years, to see what affect the program has.
Etheridge has dreams of his own in the meantime. They don't all involve basketball.
When parents asked about their daughters' participation, he added a step drill team. He's also looking at putting on a double-Dutch jump-rope competition and a youth fashion show.
He's working on throwing a teen dance, with admission being foodstuffs that the ``guys'' would collect and deliver to a homeless shelter.
He'd like to take the kids to a retirement home, ``to show them what it's like to live past 21. To listen to some of their wisdom - you don't get old being ignorant.''
He also wants to expand the basketball program to all-night, year-round.
Said Etheridge, ``I know I want, for me, this place to be a place they can go and know they have a friend.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by Lawrence Jackson
Corey L. Etheridge is program director for the YMCA's "Nighhawk
Basketball" program.
Before taking part in "Nighthawk Basketball," players must attend
brief "study halls," andd they are turned away if they miss school
classes.
KEYWORDS: BASKETBALL PROGRAM YMCA by CNB