Hoopin', Not Shootin'

It was 21 to 18 with only four minutes remaining. Antwan Madden’s Hill North team got ready for a jump ball and a final run to catch and beat Hill South. Cherick Johnson, the six-foot-six center also known as Stixx, wasn’t about to let that happen. It was no ordinary basketball game.

The tip off was being handled by the ref Omar Ryan of Frontline Souljaz, an emerging economic self-help and fraternal organization that aims to harness the competitive and entrepreneurial spirit of young black men.

So a lot more was at stake than the score as the opening game of the Hoopin’ Not Shootin’ basketball league’s second season got underway on blustery Saturday morning at West River Memorial Park.

“Most of these kids I know from the neighborhood,” said Peters, whose day job is as one of the city’s street outreach workers

When he’s not all arms and legs blocking Madden’s inside drives, Stixx wants to work in the culinary arts, through a program at Gateway Community College. But his grades were not up to speed, so Blest Peters, one of the founders of Frontline Souljaz, has found him a tutor.

Peters said that Stixx came to him after the shooting death of a friend on Ella Grasso Boulevard last summer.

What can be done to stop the violence? That question quickly became: What could Peters and other older men do to help nurture the dreams of young men like Stixx so opportunities open before them instead of violence dogging them?

The result was regular family-like meetings at Peters’ house every week. Those in turn grew into a kind of floating fraternity, which in turn led to the Frontline Souljaz business idea for Peters, and  Kevin Ewing, Omar Ryan, and Kevin Edwards. (At right is spoken word poet Ken Brown, a prospective member. Not pictured is Frontline member Jewu Rchardson.)

Where does the b-ball come in?

“That’s part of staying in touch and establishing relationships,” said Peters, who cheered on both Antwan Madden and Stixx with a bullhorn and a rap.

Ewing cited a Kauffman Foundation study to the effect that there is no group more entrepreneurial than young black men 18 to 34.

“In the hood you got to have a hustle. We want to legitimate the hustle. Better our community by bettering ourselves,” said Ewing, a former St. Louis cop, a graduate of Yale’s Divinity School, and community organizer.

Frontline Souljaz has five members now, with the prospect of more young men like Stixx joining, nurtured by the older men.

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