From IUPUI to Hill Community Center:

IUPUI

In the late 70s, IUPUI was still an NAIA basketball program. A few years later, it would join the NCAA and change its name from the Metros to the Jaguars.

After a little over a year at IUPUI as a full-time student and student manager for the collegiate basketball team, it became apparent what I wanted to do. Coach sports and work with kids. During the second year at IUPUI it also became apparent what I couldn't do. Succeed at college. 

Being totally unprepared for college, along with the financial burdens of supporting a family, forced me to give up my position as a student manager for the basketball team after the first year to get a part-time job. During the second year of college, as part of my education curriculum, I volunteered at Thatcher Community Center, where I coached the boys' basketball team. 

 Thatcher Community Center (Winter of 1976-1977)

Billy Blythe, Troy Givens, Don Barnes, Willis Ruffan, Antione Dale,
Tom Bower, Larry Delph, James Hogan, Vincent Bebly, Eric Mason.

Little remains in regards to team statistics or personal memories. The best I can recollect of the players is that Willis Rufin, Troy Givens, and Don Barnes were the outstanding players from that team. 

Leaving IUPUI

By the end of the second year at IUPUI, it was clear that I needed to get a full-time job and move on.

I managed to get hired as a part-time bus driver for a Senior Citizens Center in the BTMK area. The center was funded by a federal grant administered by the Indianapolis Parks Department. I saw it as an opportunity for a full-time job and a means to teach and coach.

Butler, Tarkington, Meridian, Kessler Neighborhood Association.

At BTMK, my official job title was Recreation Leader, but the funding for my part-time position was as a bus driver for the Senior Citizens Center (???? House). Since I was eager to get involved in the recreation side of things (and eager to work more hours), I eventually worked full time driving the bus, running an after-school program at IPS #70, and assisting with the after-school program at Womack Church and IPS #43. During the summer, I also ran a full summer program in 1977 and 1978. 

Since the senior citizens' bus was parked at the BTMK site and not the central parks department, and it was critical for the BTMK program to produce participation numbers, we used the bus for after-school activities and the daytime needs of the senior citizens center. The result was the BTMK program became a feather in the cap for the district office since we exceeded our anticipated participation numbers with a minimum impact on our budget.

 Arsenal Park (Summer League)

Following my volunteer coaching at Thatcher Community Center, I applied for a position with the Indianapolis Department of Parks and recreation. I took the first position offered, a part-time job as a bus driver with the Senior Citizens Program (Heritage Place) in the Butler-Tarkington-Meridian-Kessler Neighborhood Association. In addition to my duties as a Senior Recreation Leader, I lobbied for additional hours using my job title as an argument for expanding those duties to include serving as a recreation leader in the afterschool programs at Womack Church and Schools #43 and #70.

When summer arrived, I was assigned to run the daily activities and lunch program at Arsenal Park on 46th Street (north of the State Fairgrounds) where I ran the summer program for 2 summers.

To give the teenagers some structured and organized activities in the neighborhood, I started a morning three-on-three basketball league on the outdoor basketball court in the park. As an incentive to continued participation, I would select a "traveling team" once a week to play other parks and teams from organized summer leagues.

The activity was very informal but popular. No records or rosters were preserved, and the list of league/team members above is strictly from memory and contains players from both years.

Benny Minor, Montez Minor, Toni Johnson, Don Clark, Michael Whitesides, Michael Gunnell, Kevin Young, Dannie McCrae, Roy Jordan, Terry Toles, Keith Thomas, Gregory Sheriff.

Northeast Community Center 

At the end of the summer, 1978, I applied for a transfer to a full-time community center as Senior Recreation Specialist at Northeast Community Center on the southeast corner of Washington Park. 

Unlike the situation at BTMK, there was no established mode of transportation when taking a team to another location to play a game. This was true in most instances across the city. Transportation was to be provided by parents and parks department employees (coaches) in their personal cars. This policy harmed many organized sports programs' success since parent participation was low and underpaid staff was reluctant to risk liability in their personal vehicles. The exception to this problem was wherever the PAL Club (Police Athletic League) had a presence and the BTMK bus.

Even though I was no longer at BTMK, I still had my chauffeurs license, and I was still in the same district, which meant two things: I was still insured to drive the bus, and I was able to convince the District Office that I could get the same participation increase at Northeast that I did at BTMK. I also pointed out that besides the transportation problem, a big reason why Northeast never got good participation numbers was the small size of the gym. No one, coaches, referees, or players wanted to play on that court.

Northeast was a small community center with a grade school size gym where the backboards hung flat against the wall, and the walls were out of bounds. The neighborhood had seen better days and was plagued by small-scale neighborhood gangs, both real and imagined. It was impossible to get other teams that had transportation to come to our site.

Access to the BTMK bus made it possible to schedule games and promise players that there would be games. To ensure success, I had to coach three of the four teams the center tried to field: boys 13 and under, boys 16-18, and girls 14-15.

Today the Northeast Community Center is a church Annex. A new community center was built within a half-mile of the old center. In Washington park were the old zoo once was.

In the one year I was at Northeast I coached three teams at once with all three making it to the championship games of the Parks Department City Tournament.

Woodruff Place Community Center

In the early 1900s the Woodruff Community was a very exclusive and prosperous neighborhood for the elite of Indianapolis. By 1980 the neighborhood had seen a steady decline. Located east of Arsenal Technical High School most of the huge mansions had been converted to multi-tenant apartments. Most of the tenants were not families and most of the unconverted mansions were occupied by elder owners which left the community center without a volume of neighborhood kids.

That along with the small size of the center contributed to the center being underused. 

There was an annual Haunted House at Halloween that drew large participation, but outside of that and adult basketball in the evenings, the use of the facility was mainly a pool table and ping pong table. I also instituted tap and tumbling classes and a citywide ping-pong tournament that was moderately successful in raising participation numbers. For younger kids, I started a 3-on-3 basketball for 15 and under.

The "gym" area was even smaller than at Northeast CC. The floor wasn't even big enough to call halfcourt, the basket was on a pole, the walls were out-of-bounds and the cathedral ceilings prevented outside jump shots. I managed to get barely enough kids to form a basketball team for boys 18 and under.

While I succeeded in elevating participation numbers it was apparent that the community was not going to survive the upcoming budget cuts that the Parks Department was facing. As the fiscal year-end neared I applied for a transfer to another department where I would be training and counseling adults.

The Police Athletic League (PAL Club)

During the tournament in Kansas City officer Battles and I were both offered positions on the association's board of directors. Because of the year-round travel requirements, there was no way I could accept the position. Battles on the other hand, with financial backing from the PAL Club, accepted the position. 

Following the Kansas Trip officer Battles and I parted ways when I left Northeast CC. While I enjoyed coaching the girl's team, it was obvious that I was not going to be able to fulfill my duties as a Woodruff Community Center Director at one location and coach teams at another location. I never expected to experience another invitation to the WBAA tournament as Woodruff Place was not conducive to fielding a traveling team or even a girls team. So I informed Lymon I would be unable to coach another team in 1980.  

Lymon got another coach (a PAL Club officer like him) and took another team to Kansas in the spring of 1980. Unlike our Kansas trip this team was entered in a younger age bracket, not ht e womens division like we were. Evidently the trip was unsuccessful. 

Afterwards Lymon approached me about helping him with another team he had put together for the AAU National Womens Tournament in New Orleans. He had assembled an outstanding group of players. Four girls from the Northeast CC Team the year before Canandra, Miranda, Karen W., and Monigue. He also had two girls from Arlington HS Kaye Brewer and Sylvia Oborne, two girls from Crispus Attucks High School Theresa Murphy and Angela Barnett. I don't remember the remaining team members.

Lymon was bringing me aboard late in the process, he said he had some trouble controlling the girls and wanted me to help. This should have foretold of problems to come. I was never what could be called a disciplinarian. While I meant what I said and was strict with team rules I coached by maintaining a raport with the team. I also saw my role as assistant to Lyman on this trip.

I first met the team at an exhibition against the Indiana All -Star Team.