Wiedmer: Brainerd High is proof that not only Howard needs our help

photo Mark Wiedmer

The clock a few minutes shy of noon Thurday morning, Pneuma Christian Center pastor Ivan Brown stood in the middle of the Brainerd High School gym speaking to more than 100 young basketball players about the choices they make each day.

To get the attention of those kids ranging in age from 9 to 17, and weighted heavily on the younger side of that, Brown - a former college basketball player - recalled a moment he once shared with former University of Richmond star and 16-year NBA veteran Johnny Newman.

"We were about to play one-on-one," Brown said. "The first thing he told me was to tuck in my shirt. 'Look good, play good,' he said. Then he told me it's easier to make layups than jump shots. And he's right. Everybody can't make 3-pointers, but everybody should be able to make layups. And that's how he beat me."

Continued Brown: "Life's like basketball - it's developed from the inside out. You have to develop your inside first."

Brainerd assistant coach LaDarius Price first developed his Basketball Enrichment Camp three summers ago as a way to give back to the community that helped raised him when he was growing up on Midland Pike, which isn't much more than a 3-pointer from the Brainerd High front door.

The camp is free to everyone, and not everyone who comes is from the economically ravaged area that borders the campus.

"We've got kids from Baylor, McCallie, GPS, Ooltewah, Tyner, all over," he said. "So it's a melting pot. And a lot of them come every year. We get lots of our campers through word of mouth."

A melting pot. There was a time when Brainerd might have been Chattanooga's ultimate melting-pot high school in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Black and white. Fairly rich to very poor. White-collar and blue-collar parents alike.

Over time, that changed for the worse. Economic progress seemed to leave Brainerd behind. Test scores plummeted. Enrollment suffered. While fellow poverty-overwhelmed Howard School is enjoying a renaissance of sorts thanks to community-wide giving and interest, Brainerd struggles, and more each day.

Yet a melting pot of the school's most loyal volunteers has helped Price stage this marvelous camp. Al Chapman of Front Door Alliance chipped in with grant money. Chattanooga State coach and former Brainerd and University of Tennessee star (and LaDarius' cousin) Jay Price donated camp T-shirts. Steven Cook contributed food each day, handing out sack lunches filled with Krystals and McDonald's sandwiches, but also plenty of fresh fruit.

"So many people to thank," LaDarius Price said at the start of Thursday's final session. "We talk all the time about life being about more than you, that it's about what you do for others. And all those people giving their time and talents for free to this camp is a great example of that."

Long before Brown spoke, 12-year-old Kaileigh Chubb of Tyner Middle School worked on dribbling and shooting.

An AAU player in her spare time, the budding point guard and hopeful surgeon said what she likes best about the camp is that it's not only about basketball.

"They teach life skills," she said. "It's not just about putting a ball through a basket. You need other goals."

Fourteen-year-old Wesley Jones will be a ninth-grader this year at Notre Dame. This is his second time attending the camp, and much like Chubb he sees it as much more than a place to hone his hoops skills.

"It gets a lot of people together to have fun and play basketball," he said. "There's no drama and there's great sportsmanship. Life is more than shooting a basketball. It's about helping others and treating everyone with respect."

Nearly three hours later, the camp winding down, Destiny Freeman sat on a bleacher watching her son Kyrion King find the best seat in the house to listen to Pastor Brown.

"Kyrion's come in every morning this week telling me, 'Mom, I need to get there early,'" she said. "I love this. They learn fundamentals and everyone gets a chance to play. This is our first year, but we'll be back next year."

Added Shirley Sexton as she picked up her 10-year-old grandson Cameron: "What I like is it isn't just about basketball. They teach sportsmanship, respect, integrity, just so many things we all need to learn."

There are so many things we need to teach so many, be they 9 to 17, or 29 to 87. And Brainerd High School needs the help more than most, especially the aid of time and money to improve its aging facilities.

"Brainerd was once a school where you could get everything you needed," lamented LaDarius Price. "Now we have low test scores, the threat of being taken over by the state. Brainerd's become like a dumping ground for all the kids other schools don't want."

In that sense, what this former melting-pot school needs most is for a lot of folks on the outside to look deep within themselves and dump a portion of their time, talents and riches to help improve Brainerd High from the inside out, as others are improving Howard. And quickly, before the state does it for them.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com

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