A summer basketball haven thrives in the Bronx’s largest residential complex

Jeremiah Peoples was alone during the fast break, and the crowd’s energy propelled him to the edge. “Eat your breakfast!” the announcer boomed into the mike. Mr. Peoples, a gangly 18-year-old steeped in authority.

It was the opening day of Grenada Built to Win, the summer basketball league at Edenwald Houses in the Bronx, and there was little room for maneuver. Spectators pressed against the fence around the pitch as music played from a DJ booth and roasted chicken smoked over a fire.

After painting the tarmac at night and holding a clinic in the morning, the league’s founder, Rasheem Jenkins, known as “Rah Rah,” announced the afternoon games with verve and humor. “In and out like a relationship,” he teased as the ball spun off the rim.

The league, which entered its 11th season in June, is the realization of a dream he’s harbored since he was one of the neighborhood kids.

Mr Jenkins, 34, grew up in Edenwald, the largest public housing complex in the Bronx, in an apartment overlooking the court that would eventually become Grenada Built to Win. Back then, weeds grew out of cracks in the asphalt, and the posts at each baseline had no signboards or edges.

So Mr. Jenkins and his friend Vance Callahan played basketball on the paths between buildings, using garbage cans as hoops. Later, they huddled behind John Philip Sousa Junior High School, a short walk down Baychester Avenue, to play on the fields after dark.

The two were “out every night, with no lights,” said Mr. Callahan, the league’s program director, who coached and kept score on opening day.

Sometimes they were caught by patrolling police officers. But the officers’ attitude changed as soon as they saw a basketball under their arms, Mr. Jenkins said, and they sometimes looked at them from the street.

Basketball, Mr. Jenkins added, “gave me an escape from the realities of the projects.”

Mr. Jenkins went on to play in high school and college, scoring 2,146 points at Wings Academy in the Bronx and winning a city championship before transferring to Florida A&M where he played point guard. He completed a master’s degree in educational leadership in 2012 and returned to the metropolitan area, dividing his time between Edenwald and New Jersey.

While coaching and training basketball players in programs all over the city, Mr. Jenkins noticed few activities available to the children and teens living in Edenwald—a problem, he believed, that contributed to the neighborhood’s high crime rate. In 2012, the 47th Police Precinct in the northeastern Bronx, which Edenwald is also a part of, recorded 2,127 major crimes, 10th most in the city.

The following year, Mr. Jenkins reconnected with Mr. Callahan, who was also back in the Bronx. “I had seen a lot of the same things I saw before going to college,” says Mr. Callahan, 32, who works as a public school paraprofessional. “The violence. The drugs. It was bad.”

The two men agreed, Mr. Jenkins said, “We had to give the kids more opportunities.” They started playing basketball.

By then, plates and rims had been installed on the abandoned tracks of their youth. Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Callahan printed flyers, gave the course the first of many fresh coats of paint, and held morning clinics and evening games over the first three weekends in August in a tournament called Grenada Black Top Classic – named after Grenada Place, the street that runs alongside the housing project. It was an instant hit.

In 2015, he and Mr. Callahan expanded the tournament to a 10-week summer competition, calling it Grenada Built to Win. They expect about 300 players this season.

The program is free for players, mostly boys, ranging in age from elementary school to high school (some years, including this one, also include girls’ divisions). The expenses – for basketballs, uniforms, food and DJs, athletic trainers from Monsignor Scanlan High School, and an insurance plan – fall mainly on Mr. Jenkins, who owns a trucking company. Volunteers raise money and spread the word on social media; this season, 22 workers paid by the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program will come on board to operate the game clock, keep score and clean up. Discretionary funding from Councilman Kevin C. Riley’s office, whose district includes Edenwald, has also helped.

Even as the league has flourished — Mr. Jenkins registered it as a nonprofit in 2018 and has combined basketball with mentorship programs at local public schools to provide academic, athletic and emotional support for young people — the crime rate in Edenwald is about the same as ten years ago, according to data from Police Service Area 8, which patrols public housing facilities in the 43rd, 45th and 47th Police Precincts in the Bronx.

Still, Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Callahan believe the weekend competitions have made a difference in the lives of the hundreds of children who have participated in the competition over the years.

“It’s a home for a lot of them,” Mr. Jenkins said.

Shannon Cohen, an eighth grader who lives in Edenwald, was all about the program. “Basketball can keep you out of trouble,” he said. This is his fourth year playing in Grenada Built to Win. “It has made me stronger as a person,” he added. “I wasn’t confident in my game, but they encouraged me to play.”

At the heart of Mr Jenkins’ ambition lies in addressing something that often goes unspoken. “We all have trauma from the projects,” he said. The aim of Grenada Built to Win is to ‘correct some of that trauma’.

“Edenwald has such a bad reputation,” said Stacie Clement, assistant principal of PS 112, a nearby elementary school. “I’m trying to teach my kids, my boys and girls: don’t let that stop you from chasing your dreams.”

Mrs. Clement met Mr. Jenkins about ten years ago through Councilman Riley. Mr. Jenkins needed gym space for Grenada Built to Win clinics, and Mrs. Clement offered PS 112s on the condition that her students could participate.

“As soon as I find out one of my boys is interested in basketball, I’ll contact Rah,” she said. “If I notice that one of my boys needs a male figure in their life that I can’t provide, I reach out to Rah and say, ‘Rah, I have a kid, can you come over and talk to him?’ There’s never been a time when Rah has ever told me no.

Councilor Riley said in an interview that the league offered an alternative path for young people. “We have to make sure that our children don’t have free time,” he said. “Instead of feeling like, ‘Hey, I need to join this gang,'” he said, the neighborhood kids can join “something that’s positive.”

The court, once neglected, has become a source of life for Edenwald. Old friends meet on the sidelines as residents gather to watch the games over a burger or plate of marinated chicken and coconut rice.

Robin Gomez, 65, who has lived in Edenwald for 45 years, said she enjoys watching the games in the summer. She added that she wishes something like Grenada Built to Win had been available to her sons when they were growing up.

Michelle Leggett lived in Edenwald in the 1970s and 1980s and still comes almost every weekend to attend church and visit family. She said she had noticed that “the young people are helping
the older people now”, also with groceries.

“I notice that everyone has come together; they have their little cookouts there, they enjoy the basketball tournaments,” said Ms. Leggett, 60. “I’ve seen the community change for the better.”