First Jack Kemp tossed the ball up. The two centers leaped for it, but other than that nothing happened. Nothing athletic, that is. A whole lot of cameras clicked and whirred. Next it was Mayor Daley’s turn. Same thing. No jostling or running for the ball, but lots of flashes and snaps.
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Long before last week’s opener at Malcolm X College, the Midnight Basketball League, the Chicago Housing Authority’s new program to keep gangbangers’ shooting and stealing confined to the gym, had attracted a full-court media press, including two stories in the New York Times. Before the tip-offs, ten television cameras recorded Kemp strutting out to the microphone with a pair of Air Jordans slung over his shoulder. They taped him talking, sometimes in mock jive, about everything from Michael Jordan’s hang time to how Midnight Basketball was linked to the peaceful revolution in Eastern Europe. The league, Kemp proclaimed, was an example of making “democracy work right here at home.”
Allen Eaton is more cynical. Probably the only player from the suburbs, Eaton is here from Oak Park on the invitation of his old college teammate Chris, who now lives in the Robert Taylor Homes, and because Eaton likes playing ball with inner-city players. Why? “Because it’s a lot more vigorous, a lot more violent,” he says with a smile.
Stanley Scott, 25, reckons he’s been out of work “for about seven, eight years.” He’s been a member of the Black Disciples “for a while, some years.” The program might work, he says, but he doesn’t seem too concerned either way. And what position does he like to play? “Hey, I’m out there, just I’m out there.”
Wondering if the heat and enthusiasm of the game have changed Eaton’s mind about its larger purpose, I ask him if he now thinks the program will work. “No,” he says almost reluctantly, “I still don’t think it will.” He wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm and adds, “But the game sure was fun.”
