After three highly competitive games, Near West Side Community Development Corporation (Near West Side CDC) named three winners of its West Haven Safe Summer Basketball League Championship Tournament, held yesterday at Malcom X College. Crane Future, comprised of Crane Tech High School’s incoming freshmen, Bogan from Bogan High School, and the The Village, hailing from Roosevelt Square, won the elementary, high school and young adult division games, respectively. While the games featured some of the best athletes in the area, the event focused as much on the fairness, courtesy and ethics rewarded through “Sportsmanship” awards, as on the intense competition.
From the winning division teams, Marlon Jones, Stanley Martin, and Tony Bennett received the awards, which were given in honor of three Chicagoans slain by gun violence and symbolize Near West Side CDC’s growing mission to strengthen the neighborhood.
Jones received an award in honor of Blair Holt, Martin received the Thomas Wortham IV award, and Bennett received the Thor Sodenberg award. All three victims – Holt, Wortham and Sodenberg– tragically lost their lives in the on-going effort to revitalize Chicago communities.
Chicago police officers Sodenberg, who was popular in the community and trained new recruits, and Wortham, a community-minded individual who worked to reclaim parks from gangs, were murdered within weeks of each other. Holt was a 16-year-old student gunned down on a CTA bus while protecting a friend. The awards were presented by members of the victims’ families, including police officer Ron Holt, Blair’s father, who was recently named the director of Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS).
“Blair loved basketball so this event is very comforting. Basketball is a positive, motivating force. Like I always say, ‘Team work makes the dream work’,” Holt said.
“We need more young men doing the right thing,” said Thomas Wortham III, Wortham’s father.
This year celebrated the Third Annual West Haven Safe Summer Basketball League Championships. With 240 participants throughout the summer ranging in age from elementary school to young adult, and an estimated 250 spectators per game, the Safe Summer Basketball League has been wildly successful.
“Since the program began in 2008, public violence has decreased 64.4% in our area. From 2009 to 2010 there was a 100% decrease in both homicide and aggravated battery. These improvements are unheard of and it demonstrates how our efforts have helped empower the community,” Gates said.
The West Haven Safe Summer Basketball League was founded in 2008 as a part of the Near West Side CDC’s implementation of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation’s (LISC/Chicago) New Communities Program (NCP). The league commissioner is Aaron Boyd. The basketball league is one of the West Haven Sports Clubs. Other programs, which take place throughout the year, include dance, music, baseball, softball, boxing, math and science, and the Young Entrepreneur Program, which teaches business management. In addition, children can attend a referee training program that leads to a referee certification. All of the programs include mentoring sessions with peer discussions and the option for individual-based mentoring. The West Haven Sports Club serves over 400 youth a year.
The Near West Side CDC was established in 1988 to renovate the West Haven community. For over 20 years, the organization has been actively developing affordable housing, organizing and providing supportive services to low and moderate income residents. The Near West Side CDC advocates for healthy, positive alternatives for children and works towards building stable, self-sustainable communities.
LISC is dedicated to helping community residents transform distressed neighborhoods into healthy and sustainable communities of choice and opportunity — good places to work, do business and raise children. In collaboration with local community development groups, LISC staff help identify priorities and challenges, delivering the most appropriate support to meet local needs.
With support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, NCP works to overcome urban challenges such as abandonment, gentrification, racial change, redevelopment of public housing, and isolation from the mainstream economy.