Macon-Bibb commissioner pushes for basketball league for teens, young adults

In light of four people being shot outside a Macon recreation center Saturday night, a Macon-Bibb County official hopes a basketball league could help quell such violence.

Macon-Bibb Commissioner Virgil Watkins is pushing to bring back a midnight basketball league that provides safe environments for young people at places like Memorial Park Center, the site of Saturday’s shootings.

From 2002-2004, a federal grant paved the way for a league that also provided essential life skills.

The commission will vote Tuesday on designating $25,000 for the Operation Cease Fire Midnight Basketball League that would take place at various recreation centers throughout Macon. Participants would be required to attend workshops in order to play.

Watkins took part in the midnight basketball league in the early 2000s and remembers several hundred people packing Memorial’s gym to watch games.

“Back then and right now a Friday night for 18-year-olds might consist of going to the mall, movies, hanging out in a parking lot or a house party -- largely unstructured events,” he said. “The basketball league was at a place that’s well-secured, well-lit where we were not only playing basketball but listening to good guest speakers giving us advice to enrich our lives.”

The $25,000 would cover costs for paying employees, hiring security, buying uniforms and more. The league would have goals such as enrolling a certain number of players into a GED program and having 90 percent of them take the Georgia Work Ready Test. Financial literacy and health lessons also would be offered.

Another goal would be to reduce the number of crimes taking place from 10 p.m. until the end of the final games that tip off at 1 a.m. Between 2002-2004, crime statistics showed crime decreased significantly in six of seven participating Macon neighborhoods during the hours the basketball league was in place, said Jada Herring, a life skills coordinator during the first incarnation of the league.

“(The league) involved getting guys who had dropped out of high school back into high school, helping people get into college who had minor legal issues before they enrolled,” said Herring, assistant director of wellness services at Navicent Health.

A critical piece will be finding people and organizations to provide some of the supplemental education and track the achievements of the teens and young adults, Watkins said.

If commissioners approve the funding Tuesday, Watkins said he would like the league to start with a winter basketball tournament with games played Thursdays through Saturdays.

“(The Macon-Bibb County Recreation Department) will put together a successful and well-structured basketball league, but to me the main component and purpose is to find a way to engage the young people,” he said.

Commissioner Al Tillman said the midnight basketball league also provides an opportunity to explain laws that may impact some of the players. One of them is the “ban the box” law that allows job seekers to not disclose their criminal history in the initial stage of the application process.

Also, local places such as New Pilgrim Baptist Church have been opening up their gyms to provide a safe place for people in the neighborhoods. The midnight basketball league could become a large-scale program deserving of support from others in the community.

“Hopefully, churches and others that have gyms will see this as a benefit,” Tillman said. “We need plenty of people interested in volunteering.”

To contact writer Stanley Dunlap, call 744-4623 or find him on Twitter @stan_telegraph.

This story was originally published August 31, 2015 at 10:19 PM with the headline "Macon-Bibb commissioner pushes for basketball league for teens, young adults ."