Education

Oakland youth get introduced to lacrosse, a popular sport in the Bay Area

Published

10 years ago

July 13, 2015

Part 1

By Juan Martinez

In the past decade, the sport of lacrosse has grown exponentially in the greater Bay Area at both the high school and Division 1 college levels. In 2002, there were roughly 40 – 50 high school lacrosse teams. Today, there are well over 100.

Despite this, the sport remains rarefied. According to 2010 data from US Lacrosse, the sport’s national governing body, over 90 percent of lacrosse players, officials, coaches, and administrators are white.

Now, Kevin Kelley, who works as a goalie coach for the University of California, Berkeley men’s lacrosse team, wants to change that. In 2012, Kelley created the nonprofit Oakland Lacrosse Club (OLC), with the specific mission of bringing the sport to kids who would normally never get a chance to play it.

“Lacrosse is a suburban sport,” Kelley said. “It costs a lot of money to play. I just want to create a culture and environment for Oakland kids through a game that I love and grew up playing.”

Compared to baseball and football, lacrosse remains one of the most expensive high school sports – more than twice as expensive as baseball or basketball. The start-up cost for a team can be anywhere from $5,000 to $7,000. In addition to equipment, each team must pay an additional $1,000 to rent a field for both practice and tournament purposes.

“There are so many different layers to the diversity challenges in our sport,“ Eboni Preston-Laurent, the senior manager of diversity and inclusion at US Lacrosse, said. “For one thing, it’s expensive, especially for boys, because of the full set of gear they require – the stick itself can run you about $100 these days. I think lacrosse in general is a growing sport, but there are still kids on the West Coast and in the Midwest who have no idea what the sport is.”

Through OLC, Kelley offers free clinics to interested students for eight weeks in the fall and spring every year. He and his team of assistant coaches and volunteers, which include UC Berkeley men and women lacrosse players, meet with a group of kids for two hours. The clinics are intended to give boys and girls the opportunity to learn the fundamentals, and also learn how to play at a high level.

Lacrosse is unique in that it has the spacing of soccer, gamesmanship of basketball, and the physicality of hockey.

“Most of the teams we play have more experience,” Kelley said. “We want our teams to battle with and beat top teams from the state.”

A big component of the OLC is teaching the lessons inherent to team sports, like how to be a good teammate, the importance of positive communication, and developing the habits of persistence.

To launch the program, Kelley partnered with six Oakland middle schools (Claremont, Brewer, Oakland Military Institute, Westlake, Urban Promise Academy, and Life Academy), with the goal of recruiting students from a diverse array of backgrounds. Last year, 40 percent of Kelley’s players were African-American, and 29 percent were Latino. Just 5 percent were white.

“People told me Oakland was a basketball town,” Kelley said. “They told me that I could never get kids to play lacrosse because it wasn’t culturally relevant to them. That pissed me off. It made me want to prove them wrong!”

In practice, Kelley focuses on resiliency and preaches that to his players. He wants them to be seen as athletes and not as victims. Such support can make a difference in a city like Oakland, where only 67 percent of kids graduate high school.

Children growing up in East and West Oakland have a life expectancy 12 years less than children living in Piedmont, and are five times more likely to develop type II diabetes than children living in Piedmont.

Assistant Principal Dennis Guikema of Urban Promise Academy appreciates that the OLC promotes a happy, healthy and positive lifestyle for kids by giving them another option to perform physical activities.

“It was very interesting to see kids, who I had not seen involved in sports before, get really engaged in lacrosse,” Guikema said.

Overall, the OLC’s retention rate is around 90 percent. One-third of the kids are returning players, but almost all of the rest have only recently learned the sport.

“Every sport in America was once like lacrosse before it got diversified and integration took place,” said Lanon Gillins, OLC Director of Individual and Team Development. “Kids ask me all the time, ‘Isn’t it a white sport?’ And I say, ‘Yeah but so what?’”

This article is Part 1 of a 3-part series.

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Activism

Actor, Philanthropist Blair Underwood Visits Bay Area, Kicks Off Literacy Program in ‘New Oakland’ Initiative

These community activations were coordinated with the San Francisco-based non-profit program “Room to Read.” Ray said he is also donating his time to read and take pictures with students to encourage their engagement and to inspire them to read more. The inspirational book “Clifford Ray Saves the Day” highlights Clifford Ray’s true story of saving a dolphin.

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Blair Underwood (left) and Barbara Lee (right). Courtesy photo.

By Paul Cobb
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The Post mentioned three weeks ago that a number of our local luminaries were coming together to support the “New Oakland” movement. As this current national administration continues to eliminate our “legacy” institutional policies and programs left and right, most communities find themselves beyond “frozen” in fear.

Well, esteemed actor, long-time Bay Area supporter, and philanthropist Blair Underwood returned to Oakland this week to speak with city leaders, community trust agents, students, the Oakland Post, and local celebrities alike to continue his “New Oakland” initiative.

This week, he kicked off his “Guess Who’s Coming to Read” literacy program in some of Oakland’s middle schools. Clifford Ray, who played the center position of the 1975 World Champion Golden State Warriors, donated close to 1,000 books. Ray’s fellow teammate Charles “The Hopper” Dudley also gave Converse sneakers to students.

Underwood also spent quality time with the Oakland Ballers ownership group and visited the amazing Raimondi Park West Oakland community revitalization site. In the 1996 TV film Soul of the Game, Underwood played the role of the legendary first Black Major League Baseball player Jackie Robinson and commended the Ballers owners.

“This group of sports enthusiasts/ philanthropists needs to be applauded for their human capital investment and their financial capital investment,” Underwood said. “Truly putting their money and passion to work,” Underwood said.

Underwood was also inspired by mayoral candidate Barbara Lee’s open-minded invitation to bring public-private partnership opportunities to Oakland.

Underwood said he wants to “reinforce the importance of ‘collaborative activism’ among those most marginalized by non-empathic leadership. We must ‘act out’ our discomfort with passionate intentions to create healthy change.”

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Activism

McClymonds High Names School Gym for Star Graduate, Basketball Legend Bill Russell

William “Bill” Felton Russell was born on Feb. 12, 1934, and died on July 31, 2022. He achieved fame as a U.S. professional basketball player who played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969. He was the centerpiece of the Celtics dynasty that won 11 NBA championships during his 13-year career.

Published

1 month ago

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Oakland Post

Bill Russell and Brian McGhee in McClymonds High School Gym, 2011. Photo courtesy of Brian McGhee.

By Ken Epstein

West Oakland’s McClymonds High School, “the School of Champions,” this week named the school’s gymnasium in honor of one of its most famous graduates, basketball legend Bill Russell (class of ’52).

Russell is widely known as one of the greatest basketball players of all time. In 2011, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civil honor, from President Barack Obama for Russell’s contributions to basketball and the Civil Rights Movement.

The McClymonds’ naming ceremony was held on Wednesday, the same day as Russell’s birthday. Oakland leader Bill Patterson, a longtime friend of Russell’s, was scheduled to cut the ribbon at the reopening of the gym, which had been closed for several months for renovation. Russell’s daughter Karen was scheduled to attend the ribbon cutting.

Russell’s name and signature are now printed on the gymnasium floor.

Patterson was working at DeFremery Park when he met Russell. “I befriended him as a boy and during his years at University of San Francisco” said Patterson. “We stayed friends for the rest of his life.”

Said McClymonds Principal Darielle Davis, herself a McClymonds graduate, “We are excited to honor Bill Russell for his sports accolades and because he broke color barriers. He is part of our legacy, and legacy is really important at McClymonds.”

Brian McGhee, community schools manager at McClymonds and former football player at UC Berkeley, said that Russell meant a lot to him and others at the school. “He was a beacon of light and hope for West Oakland,” he said. “He did a lot for sports and for civil rights.”

Starting in 2018, Ben “Coach” Tapscott worked with Patterson and other McClymonds grads, community members, and former coaches to encourage the Oakland Board of Education to endorse the naming of the school gym, which finally happened recently.

“We worked hard to make this happen,” said Tapscott. “He’s an important part of McClymond’s history, along with a lot of other famous graduates,” he said.

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Tony Thurmond Urges Educators to Stay Focused Amid Federal Funding Battle

In a statement and a letter to California’s local educational agencies (LEAs), Thurmond praised efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism and close achievement gaps, particularly for socioeconomically disadvantaged students. “Now is not the time to be distracted by external efforts to demean and divide,” Thurmond wrote. “Please continue to stay the course with local programs that are producing results. Our students need consistency, support, and community more than ever.”

Published

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Oakland Post

Tony Thurmond. Courtesy of Tony Thurmond’s Facebook page.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond has urged educators to remain focused on student achievement following a court ruling that temporarily blocks the Trump administration from freezing federal funding for schools, health care, law enforcement, and disaster relief.

A U.S. District Court judge in Rhode Island issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on Jan. 31, halting federal efforts to pause funding while a lawsuit led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 22 other state attorneys general moves forward. Thurmond, a declarant in the case, welcomed the decision and reassured educators that funding for critical school programs remains in place.

“Now is not the time to be distracted by external efforts to demean and divide,” Thurmond wrote. “Please continue to stay the course with local programs that are producing results. Our students need consistency, support, and community more than ever.”

Thurmond emphasized that state officials will continue advocating for stable funding to ensure schools can maintain and expand programs that help students succeed.