How did two black men from Montreal’s inner city land up creating a model for education in general? That grew from a city basketball camp from 8 black kids to 300 kids from all over the city from every culture, from every walk of life? ” “It all started with a phone call…” a phone call that over the years saved thousands of lives.
26 years ago, Dean Smith received a call from his close friend, Trevor Williams.
“Dean, let’s start a basketball camp. A different kind. Built on life-skills. A drive to achieve excellence.”
Trevor was just back from playing in Canada’s national team trying out for the Olympics..
He didn’t make it.
He was the best player on the team. It was an acknowledged fact.
But other than 2 minutes of play, he had been kept sitting on the bench throughout the tryouts.
The reason was well known. Basketball was still a white man’s domain.
The experience shattered Trevor. It was the first time he had experienced toxic racism.
But it was a life-changing experience. He vowed that he would work to create change for the other inner city kids.
‘We escaped the inner city because basketball was our passion and it kept us in school to get our education – our passport to get out of the inner city.”
What was it about basketball that has this power?
“Basketball is a common passion of inner city kids. Only school has the organized teams where they have a chance to play competitive basketball across the city.”
But survival in the inner city needed more than basketball.
To survive, a child needed two parents. One to work, the other to be home to constantly make sure their kid stayed out of trouble
Close friends Dean Smith and Trevor Williams, both survivors of the pitfalls of the inner city, each had had two parents.
Dean’s mother, Jessica Maxwell Smith, worked tirelessly to keep Dean on the straight and narrow.
She filled him with the fear of the hyenas waiting to entrap him if he slipped off the trodden path and got into trouble. .
She didn’t mince words.
“Arrest. Charges laid . Criminal Record. No one will hire you. Falling into Crime. Penitentiary for 10 years. Game over”
She punished him when he strayed, and she punished him when he didn’t do well in school.
But she rewarded him when he did.
Dean remembers fondly.
“A new bicycle for promotion to the next grade. I got a new bicycle every year!”
Dean’ got his passion to save inner city kids, from his mother.
Jessica Maxwell Smith was a force to be reckoned with. Her passion to save kids, not only her own, but all the kids of the inner city, was unparalleled.
She knew that the kids’ passion for sport was the key to keeping them in school to get that education which would save them.
So she rounded up all the kids in the inner city to play sports in the park opposite her house. When she died the park was named after her.
Two parents…..and a mentor.
Kids in the inner city, "kids anywhere, need a mentor."
Dean’s father was his mentor.
He guided Dean’s attitude to dealing with life.
“Logic” The word was the mantra for a "cool head."
“Son, use that cool head of yours to figure out how to make things happen. Change is possible.
And if you believe it’s possible, you will find a way ……with a cool head!”
Trevor' mentor was Bob White. a legend in the inner city.
Trevor’s passion to help the inner city kids came from Bob White’s powerful example.
Trevor’s innate potential for basketball stardom was apparent very early.
The story has it that one day Trevor was walking with his friend.
He was tall and lanky, and even at 11 years old moved with the great grace of a natural born basketball player.
Bob, driving by, saw Trevor, stopped his car, poked his head out and called out, “Hey son, do you play basketball?”
‘Yes sir, I sure do.”
“Then tomorrow come to this address. We’re starting a basketball training program. And cut your hair. You’ve got to look presentable.”
Trevor and his friend were the first two kids of the West End Sports Association formed by Bob White.
It was that training and the focus Bob White put there that turned Trevor into a Canadian National Team star player.
It was that training that kept thousands of other kids in school over the years!
As adults, the two long time friends, Dean and Trevor, had made a name for themselves.
Dean became the head of the newly formed Trevor Williams Basketball Academy. A 7-week summer basketball city camp.
It was the only logical choice.
Dean was an esteemed and greatly loved master coach, with a track record of success with girls teams both in top private schools and in the inner city.
Trevor, with his experience as star basketball player, at the top of his game, took over the training of the potential basketball stars from the Academy as well as from all over the city.
He prepared them for competitive tournaments in the U.S. which exposes them to talent scouts hunting for their universities which offered scholarships to those talented players who are picked.
For the black inner-city youth, the opportunity to win a scholorship to university is their only chance to get a university education.
Both Dean and Trevor run the funding arm of the Trevor Williams Basketball Academy:
The Trevor Williams Kids Foundation.
The Academy started with 8 black kids from the Little Burgundy Inner City. But what both Dean and Trevor couldn’t have foreseen was that the word would spread of the uniqueness of the passion behind the best basketball training in the city.
The color filters were dropped. The rich-poor filters were dropped. All the other filters were dropped. The guiding spirit of the Academy (“Mother of the Academy”, Jessica Maxwell Smith) drew the mothers from all parts of the city.
They wanted for their kids the development of those life skills behind the basketball training:
That sense of self-respect,
the experience of giving your all no matter how seemingly inconsequential the task,
the drive to focus on everything you undertake.
And discipline, built on fairness and caring.
Dean and Trevor made it out of the inner city. But others didn’t.
Single mothers couldn’t stay home to bring up their children and drill them to be strong and focused and stay out of trouble because they had to work .
Single mothers included those having a husband who was an alcoholic and didn’t work because he couldn’t battle the feelings of failure created by the oppression of the inner city.
And when a man was shot in the inner city, it wasn’t just a story you read about in the newspaper.
You lived it.
Maybe it was the father of your friend with whom you played in the park.
Suddenly, your friend was no longer playing sports in the park…
Kids of single parents need the help of basketball, tutors and mentors. Like Dean and Trevor had.
Dean and Trevor have set their sights on stretching the basketball nets to catch and keep more and more inner city kids in school.
Through the Trevor Wlliams Kid Foundation, the funding arm of the Trevor Willams Basketball Academy and Foundation, they are looking to buy a building
Where kids could go after school.
Play basketball after school all year round.
In two gyms.
One for the basketball camp,
the other for the training of Trevor’s star basketball players who have their sights set on the university basketball scholarships.
A place where kids could get the tutoring and mentoring that will keep them in school.
A building that would take the academy right back to its roots, the Jessica Maxwell Smith’s Park.
And eventually, create other schools in the inner city which will replace 80% of the present schools which are below the level of public and private schools elsewhere.
“What is the goal of such an endeavor?”
“We want to make sure that one day, every kid who aims to go to university won’t need a lottery to pay for it. Their hard work and dedication alone will get them there.”
