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Author Roy Fuchs is a Westport Sunrise Rotary member.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, a Chinese proverb tells us and Westonite Mike Evans knows it's true. On May 21, he talked to the Westport Sunrise Rotary about how his extraordinary journey began. Evans was a basketball star at Weston High School who graduated from Hamiliton College with a degree in Education in 2005. Disdaining a regular job, and wanting to pursue his dream of playing basketball, he moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland. Once in Belfast, he determined to make basketball a catalyst to bring together Catholic and Protestant children, who live in a social war zone with schools 96% religiously segregated.
Evans' first effort, with large groups of kids, didn't work. So he restarted, coaching two small teams of high school age boys. He worked separately with his two teams, each in their own neighborhood, and without telling either about the other. The first joint practice did not go well. Both groups walked out of the gym. And for many subsequent practices, not a word was spoken. Neither group would cross over the half court line to play with, much less talk to, their team mates.
In competition, Evans' team, the Belfast Blazers. were dramatic underdogs. They played hard, won, but didn't bond. Once, however, late in a game, with a seven point lead, Coach Evans told his Blazers to keep dribbling to run out the clock and preserve the win and to talk to each other on defense. (Basketball teams have to talk to be successful.) Still they refused. Suddenly, one of the team's leaders ignored everything Coach Evans had said, and launched a long shot. The coach's eye told him it had no chance to go in. He feared the other team would grab the errant shot, score and go on a game winning run. Out of nowhere, a Blazer near the net jumped up, snatched the ball before it hit the rim and slammed it through an alley oop play - that brought the few fans to their feet, and became a turning point. The team admired the shot, and began to talk to each other.
The Blazers became the first program of Full Court Peace, as Mike Evans' organization is now known. It uses basketball to bring together people in areas of strife. Supporters paid to bring The Blazers to Weston to play a few games. They were guests of several Weston families, and stayed in houses that to the Belfast lads looked like hotels. They didn't fare well on the court, losing every game. Evans described it as ugly, but they loved it.Their final treat was an overnight stay in a New York hotel, a gift of one of the Weston families. At what should have been bed time, Evans went from room to room and found no one. Then, on the 35th floor, he heard what sounded like 30 seconds of an Irish rebel song, followed by an equal length of another coming from one room. Fearing the worst, he warily walked into the room. Instead he saw the boys finally talking playing first a Catholic song, which one of the Catholic boys explained, followed by a Protestant song. This was the real breakthrough.
Mike turned the Belfast project over to others to return home and start two new journeys. One is a program in Cuba, where he'll head this August, to use basketball to teach democracy to teenagers. The other will focus on Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, an area mired in drug related strife. With his organization, Full Court Peace, Mike Evans has found that, for many, basketball can lead the way to an amazing journey. For more information, visit the Full Court Peace website.
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