Night’s Light – Midnight Hoops brightens late hours for neighborhood teens

CEDAR RAPIDS -- The Black Team tips off against the Blue Team. At 10 p.m., it's the second and final game of the night.

The gym is swelteringly hot, but Alleigha Green plays it cool as she dribbles the perimeter.

She says she has a tendency to showboat, but her teammates on the Black Team, including Dacien Pledge, 16, of Cedar Rapids, keep feeding her the rock.

Every Friday between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., Pledge, Green and about 40 other teens from the Wellington Heights and Moundview neighborhoods get together at the Jane Boyd Community House gym, 943, 14th Ave. SE, for Midnight Hoops

Organizers Jason Pershing and Trent Gaines, who have known each other since their own boyhoods playing basketball at Jane Boyd -- say the mission of the league is to teach neighborhood kids teamwork and the value of friendly competition as well as offer an alternative to pressure from peers to get involved in criminal activity.

"You can have friends and hang out with your friends and do positive things," says Pershing, who works for Upward Bound at Coe College and is also a basketball coach at Washington High School.

That's why Pledge is there.

"It teaches me how to, like, how to work with others," he says.

In addition to playing basketball , the teens will hear motivational speakers throughout the six-week program, which ends Aug. 13. Teens ages 14 through 18 who live in the two neighborhoods are the target group for this program. However, many of the players are older and from other parts of the city.

The league got started with a $4,753 grant from the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation. The Wellington Heights neighborhood Association also helped bring in the program.

"The kids in the neighborhood deserve this," says Terry Bilsland, the group's president.

Lessons learned playing basketball transfer into the real world, says Green, 15, a Jefferson High School sophomore.

"It teaches me to be disciplined in everything I do, and it teaches me a lot about teamwork. And some things you can't do on your own," she says.

Green says her mom wouldn't allow her to cause mischief on the streets. But this league may stop others from giving into temptations, she says.

"After this, you're already tired, so most likely all you're going to do is go home and crash," Green says.

That's the idea, Pershing says. They wanted to bring teens together.

"The teamwork aspect: playing with guys you normally wouldn't play with, maybe you don't even know them," he says.

One recent Friday night, it's apparent all the teens in the gym shared at least one thing -- a love for the game.

Sweat drips onto the gym floor. Pledge slashes down the lane.

A table's been set up in front of the bleachers. Pershing tallies rebounds, and Gaines ticks at the scoreboard.

Pershing and Gaines compare Pledge's style to a pro player, "He's kind of like Antawn Jamison," Gaines says.

"It's kind of classy, a little unorthodox," Pershing says.

Only a few seconds remain on the clock. Gaines shouts from the sidelines.

"Finish strong, Blue! Keep playing, Blue!"

When the final buzzer sounds the players walk around shaking hands at center court. Gaines and Pershing cram extra jerseys in a cardboard box. Play is over for the night and the gym door is locked up.

A bright light that had been beaming from the gym into the dark night vanishes, but it'll be back on next week.