What does neighborhood resurgence mean? Or, remembering grandpa at work

Wisconsin Steel, in its "glory" days

Mayor Richard M. Daley was on his Neighborhood Appreciation Tour Wednesday and ventured to the far Southeast Side 10^th Ward – where he chose to show up at a construction site once occupied by the Wisconsin Steel mill.

That’s the one that shuttered suddenly in 1980, leaving thousands of neighborhood folk out of work and jolting the South Deering neighborhood and its surrounding communities into a decline from which it has a long way to rebound even now, some three decades later.

I TOOK MY personal interest in this on account of the fact that my maternal grandfather, Michael Vargas, worked his entire adult life at that steel mill – raising a family of eight kids (my mother was number four) on that salary.

Which is why when I covered Daley’s appearance for one of the area newspapers at the former mill (the land of which is now being converted into a liquid asphalt storage facility), I couldn’t help but wonder as I got out of my car and walked on the muddy grounds where the mayor’s people erected a podium and a tent (it was windy) if I was literally following in the footsteps of my grandfather.

Daley, in showing up at the construction site for this facility, was trying to take credit for the project – for which the city provided $45 million through a bond sale.

Perhaps he should get some. Because my lingering memory of the South Deering neighborhood will always be that of the sight of the rusty, decaying former steel mill now sitting vacant and depressing – dragging down its surrounding neighborhoods.

WHEN COMBINED WITH the fact that Wisconsin Steel was not the only area factory to close when economic conditions changed in recent decades, it really did create a depressing atmosphere in which to live – which was a large part of why my own family felt the need to “go suburban” when my brother and I were young children.

My grandfather



A part of me stood out there in the middle of what was once a steel mill (I’m not sure of what was once where, so I don’t know for sure what part of the immense plant he would have worked in) and I couldn’t help but think of my grandfather – who also was one of my three grandparents who were born in Mexico, then came to this country as a young man.

When he came, it was with the understanding that his labor was needed at a steel mill in Chicago. Which is how he got the job, and why his route to U.S. citizenship was cleared.

I couldn’t help but wonder what he would have thought of the site on Wednesday of all the old steel mill torn down and the environmental waste being cleared away, all so that a new plant that from a distance looks like a few oil refineries could be built.

HE’D PROBABLY LIKE the idea of people being able to work again. Although I’m not sure he’d think much of anyone trying to sentimentalize what he once did – it was work, and he did it for the money to support himself and a family.

Now in one sense, my grandfather was fortunate. Wisconsin Steel was the plant that literally closed down overnight – leaving its people out-of-work and (in many cases) unemployable. People who were capable of doing so moved away. Those who were left were there because they were stuck.

By the time that happened in 1980, my grandfather had already been dead for two years. Neither he nor my grandmother had to endure the economic hardships of other 10^th Ward residents whose lives were tied up in working in those steel mills. But I have no doubt that many of the people who did suffer knew my grandfather, and probably well.

I also don’t think he would have clung to the neighborhood all that tightly. As it was, he lived the final years of his life in a house in suburban Lansing, where he enjoyed being able to get away from the urban grime.

I CAN’T HELP but wonder if he would view the fact that his last house now has a Mexican ethnic grocery located about one block away as some sort of evidence that the grime he was trying to flee was somehow following him.

Which probably means that Daley was correct on Wednesday when he said that people should focus on the future and how to improve the neighborhood, which he says will happen by creating jobs in the area that can pay something resembling a livable salary.

“The future is always brighter than the past,” Daley said, while also giving us a perfect line that could be typed up and stuffed into fortune cookies of the future.

If my grandfather were here today, I doubt he’d be looking to move back to the old neighborhood. He’d also be looking to the future, and how our family needs to continue to strive forward in society – rather than being willing to settle for what we already have.

ALTHOUGH I DO have to admit one thing about modern-day South Deering – there’s a tiny restaurant at 108^th Street across from the old mill site that makes the best tamales I know of, and is the place where my brother and I go to buy a few dozen from time to time when we get the taste for them.

Because we haven’t really had a good home-made tamale since our grandfather’s death when I was 13.

But more importantly, if it hadn’t been for my grandfather’s work during his life (more stressful work than anything I have ever had to do), we likely wouldn’t be where we are now.

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Adding to his political resume – Claypool “friend” picks him for CTA post

It's good for Forrest to be the buddy ...

He has been a Cook County commissioner, a Park District boss, a member of the county Board of (Tax) Appeals and was once a chief-of-staff to Richard M. Daley as mayor.

There may well be a few more titles that Forrest Claypool has held during his professional life in Chicago-area politics. But the man whom many people were willing to view as the ultimate goo-goo who would reform Chicago-style politics when he ran against Joseph Berrios for Cook County assessor got himself another position to add to his resume.

UNDER MAYOR-ELECT RAHM Emanuel, Claypool will serve as the president of the Chicago Transit Authority. A real goo-goo wouldn’t be getting this many chances to be a part of the government establishment.

Not that I’m knocking Claypool. It’s just that learning Tuesday of Emanuel’s decision to grant a position to his buddy of some three decades confirms in my mind all the thoughts I had about the Claypool “phenomenon” of recent years.

Too many people viewing Forrest as the great goo-goo hope in his bids for county board President against John Stroger (which turned into the Todd Stroger years) and for assessor against Berrios.

As I noted, the two men have known each other for years. It is totally predictable that Emanuel would include Claypool somewhere within his mayoral administration.

CLAYPOOL DID COME out publicly for Emanuel fairly early in the mayoral campaign season (back in the days when anybody who would have predicted a 55 percent “victory” for Rahm in the first round of this year’s election season would have been considered insane).

Of course, that came after Emanuel offered up tepid support (not a proper endorsement) for Claypool’s bid for county assessor.

... of the mayor-elect



Could this be the latest political favor – giving the former county board member who has been politically unemployed since losing that bid last year for assess a position with the CTA?

It’s not exactly the highest-ranking position within city government. But it is a post that will make Claypool a prominent political person. After all, he’ll be in charge of the buses and trains that comprise the bulk of Chicago’s public transportation.

OF COURSE, IT also will mean that Claypool will be the man who gets the blame for every single mishap that takes place on board a subway car, or every single gaffe by a CTA official of any rank.

Then again, dealing with public abuse is part of the role of being a public official – the reason why political people snicker to themselves when they joke about their work being “the people’s business.”

Not that Claypool was the only friendly political person given an appointment by Emanuel – who loses the “-elect” in his Mayor title in mid-May.

Former Alderman Terry Peterson, who had been named chairman of the Chicago Transit Board, learned he will get to keep that title, which means he will be working with Claypool to keep the trains running on time.

THAT IS PETERSON’S reward for backing Emanuel early in his mayoral bid.

So has Claypool “sold out” his goo-goo credentials by being willing to accept such an appointment? I’d reiterate that such credentials were an exaggeration to begin with.

So his reward for being willing to go along with the new administration (which in many ways is the one that will continue the ways of the old administration) is to get a plum political post.

Anybody who thinks that the CTA isn’t important doesn’t understand the mentality of Chicago – where many people do rely on mass transit to get around – mainly because parking a car on city streets often involves paying ridiculously high fees to do it legally, or a willingness to run up tickets and risk having one’s car “booted” if they do it illegally.

CLAYPOOL IS JUST the latest of appointments that have been announced by Emanuel in his desire to show that he’s capable of running city government from his first day in office.

He made the big deal of bringing in Jean-Claude Brizard to be head of the Chicago Public Schools. He formerly was head of the public schools in Rochester, N.Y., which means Emanuel will be able to claim he’s bringing in an outside expert who will shake things up within the schools system.

It is a system in desperate need of a shakeup.

But it also means that the pressure will be on Emanuel to stay within the department when picking a new Chicago Police superintendant.

THE CHICAGO NEWS Cooperative is reporting how former Seattle police Chief Gil Kerlikowske (who most recently was director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy) is in line for the position – having met with Emanuel last week to talk about the position.

Yet this is the same department that rejected the idea of Jody Weis as police superintendant because he was former FBI. I doubt that the same police bureaucrats who had a hang-up about being run by a “junior G-man” would want a “drug czar” in charge.

Which may be all the more reason for Emanuel to have a friend like Claypool in such a prominent position. When Rahm gets whacked about by other city officials for everything that goes wrong, it will help him ever so much to have at least one official who likes him personally, as well as professionally.

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EXTRA: Draw your own political map! It won’t be more ridiculous than real thing

It is going to be interesting to see what comes out of the special rooms being set up both in Chicago and Springfield where people with an interest in political boundaries will get a chance to show the politicians how it should be done.

The Illinois House of Representatives has its redistricting committee working its way around Illinois (spending this week on the far South Side at the Chicago State University campus on Wednesday, the surrounding suburbs and in Will County) to get the input of people who think they know what the Legislature should do when putting together the legislative and Congressional boundaries for the next decade.

BUT THEY’RE ALSO going to have special rooms set up with computers and certain population data so people can literally try drawing their own boundaries – with those proposals then being included in the official record that legislators will consider when they approve a map FOR REAL some time in late May.

One such room will be at the Bilandic Building (formerly known as the State of Illinois Building and currently used as the Chicago office of the Illinois Supreme Court), while the other will be in Springfield at the Stratton Building (located next to the Statehouse proper and quite possibly the ugliest government building in existence).

Think of it as the political equivalent of a “do it yourself” ice cream sundae bar.

Only there’s no guarantee that anyone is going to take your proposal seriously, although state Rep. Karen Yarbrough, D-Maywood, says that all maps drawn up by individuals at those rooms will be put on the Legislature’s special redistricting website so that the public at-large can see their efforts.

SO KNOCK YOURSELF out if you want to give it a try. Officials ask that if you want to show up, call 217-558-3036 first to set up an appointment.

The results may wind up being absurd doodles compiled by people who have no clue how to fit their communities in with the rest of the state.

Then again, they certainly won’t be any more ridiculous than whatever boundaries get drawn up by Democratic Party leadership and approved by the General Assembly.

Ridiculous political boundaries that make little to no sense to their community’s character is about the only guarantee of the redistricting process.

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Here’s hoping people don’t read more into Pulitzer prizes than they’re worth

First, let me state my congratulations to the three reporter-type people for the Chicago Sun-Times who took that newspaper’s first Pulitzer Prize in 22 years.

Their work documenting the details of a particularly violent weekend in Chicago (some 40 people shot, but none of the cases turning into a conviction in criminal court) offers up an understanding of a segment of our city that too many of us try to pretend doesn’t exist at all.

SO FOR THE fact that the Sun-Times will get professional credit for helping us to better understand our city, they deserve some credit. I only hope that people don’t take their Pulitzer for “Local News Reporting” doesn’t go to their heads.

Because I could see how some people would want to claim that this is evidence that the Sun-Times has managed to maintain a high quality despite all their budget cuts – as though all the resources (which even in their old days were few) of the past were somehow just wasted money.

The Sun-Times is a scrawny newspaper compared to the past that often fills its pages with copy taken from the suburban newspapers that their parent company also owns. Even many of those publications are mere shells of what they were a couple of decades ago (back when I graduated from college and began earning a living as a reporter-type person).

I look at the fact that three reporters for the Sun-Times can now claim to be Pulitzer Prize winners (while the Chicago Tribune got nothing this year, although there’s an odd story there too) as coming about despite the economic nonsense that has taken place at their newspaper – and at many other publications.

AND IT IS a half-way decent report worth reading even now, nearly a year after it was originally published.

The Tribune has endured just as many problems as the Sun-Times, although they have had their bankruptcy travails reported on at a national level.

So I can’t help but think that the Sun-Times Pulitzer prize somehow smarts at Tribune Tower – combined with the fact that the Los Angeles Times managed to take two Pulitzer prizes (including the one for public service reporting that is considered to be the most prominent).

The Tribune managed to get themselves named as a finalist for breaking news reporting, along with the Tennessean of Nashville and the Miami Herald (combined with its el Nuevo Herald Spanish language edition). But the bigwigs assembled by Columbia University to select the awards decided to pick no winner in that category.

SO WE’LL NEVER know if the Tribune’s accounts of the deaths of two Chicago firefighters who were killed while searching for squatters in an abandoned burning building were somehow worthy, or if the Haiti earthquake coverage coming from the Miami newspapers was somehow superior.

It will be one of those points debated by shrinking numbers of reporter-types over drinks for years to come.

Which is why the Tribune, not wanting to give the Sun-Times too much glory, chose the tactic of all newspapers that want to appear to be serious but didn’t win anything of their own to brag about.

The Tribune put together a story on Monday telling us of the Pulitzer prizes for various categories in the arts – and found that some of them were won by people with ties to Chicago.

SUCH AS THE prize for drama won by Bruce Norris. He’s a Northwestern University graduate and he has ties to the Steppenwolf Theatre. In fact, his Pulitzer-winning play “Clybourne Park,” is set in Chicago – although he chose to have it staged in New York and London before it will finally come to the Steppenwolf later this year.

The Tribune even informed us about how the Pulitzer winner for fiction was won by Chicago-born author Jennifer Egan.

In some ways, such coverage might be more honest and in line with what readers might care about. Letting us know about the winners of a top prize in the arts can be informative, while too much of Pulitzer Prize coverage evolves into a mess of self-congratulatory tripe.

Of course, that fact won’t stop me from my running joke whenever I write a particularly dreadful or convoluted piece of copy (telling whichever editor is relevant that I expect to get my Pulitzer for this piece).

WHO KNOWS? MAYBE there will be the day when the Pulitzer prizes will expand themselves to the point where various publications on the Internet will be in the running (rather than the limited categories that exist now). Maybe someday I’ll write a series of commentaries on this weblog that can qualify for the Pulitzer Prize either for “commentary” or “criticism.”

Then, maybe, I’ll be the one engaging in self-indulgent tripe about the prize, while others try to downplay it. At the very least, it would look good hanging on the wall next to my "Lisagor" award.

Ah, who’s kidding whom? Hinting that I’m going to win the Pulitzer someday makes me sound like those loons who seriously think the Chicago Cubs are going to win the pennant anytime soon.

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Should Rod listen to Rob?

For some two-plus decades, I have covered legal proceedings in assorted criminal trials, and I have come to the conclusion that I don’t think it really makes a difference whether or not a defendant takes the witness stand and testifies on his own behalf.

BLAGOJEVICH: Does his brother have a clue?



Because for as much as jurors are supposed to give the defendant the benefit of the doubt (presume he’s innocent until prosecutors prove otherwise), I have always felt like most trials are over and done with once the prosecution rests its case.

EITHER THE PROSECUTORS have done such an effective job in tossing out fact, rumor and trivia to create the impression that the defendant is guilty that it doesn’t matter one bit what he says, or the prosecutors have failed to use the inherent advantage of their position that the jury is already ready to vote to acquit – largely so they can quit returning to the courthouse and go back to their regular life routines.

If anything, a defendant’s testimony (on those occasions when he – or she – testifies) adds nothing that changes the basic mood of the jury in any given criminal case.

So when I heard the news reports being picked up by broadcasters from a Chicago Sun-Times story that says Rob Blagojevich is advising his brother, former Illinois Gov. Rod, to testify on his own behalf during his upcoming re-trial, I couldn’t help but snicker.

Rob told the newspaper that he thinks his brother is capable of creating enough doubt in the criminal charges against him by testifying, which would allow his attorneys to then bring up portions of the federal wiretap recordings that prosecutors would prefer to think are irrelevant – preferring to use only those snippets out of 500 hours of raw tape that make Rod Blagojevich look particularly venal.

ROB (WHO DURING the first trial was a co-defendant but has since had all charges dropped against him) said he thinks that if Rod testifies, “I think he’d knock it out of the park.”

Now I know there are those people who think that prosecutors would easily be able to make Blagojevich look even more venal if he actually tried testifying on his own behalf, because then they’d be able to question him directly, and under oath.

They think they could either trip him up, or make him look so arrogant that the jurors would wind up despising him even more.

But as I implied earlier, I don’t think it matters.

THE REASON THAT Blagojevich is even undergoing a second trial is because the prosecutors did such a poor job of trying to explain the basis by which the former Illinois governor’s political activity should be considered criminal that the jury couldn’t bring itself to render “guilty” verdicts against the man – except for that one count about lying to the FBI.

Although I still wonder how he could be guilty of that charge if he wasn’t found guilty of anything else.

That verdict from his first trial just strikes me as a jury so overwhelmed by testimony that they felt they had to find him guilty of something, but didn’t really know what it was he did wrong.

And that was in a trial where Blagojevich did not take the witness stand in his own behalf – even though he had gone on for months about how he would testify and drag down the political establishment of this state.

I SENSE BLAGOJEVICH, if he does wind up speaking under oath on his own behalf in his re-trial, wiouldn’t mind trying that tactic this time around.

When he made his house-front manifesto last week to complain about prosecutors trying to limit his defense, he couldn’t help but drag the names of Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel and Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., into his argument – claiming somehow that if they’re not guilty of any wrongdoing, how could he be?

Which could mean that Blagojevich could come off as smarmy and worthy of any penalty that a jury might want to have inflicted upon him – even if prosecutors wind up putting together another confusing case that is meant to intimidate a juror into thinking that something illegal must have occurred.

Because, let’s face it. The charges against Blagojevich aren’t clear-cut venality – no matter how much prosecutors want to believe in their own minds that they are. It’s totally conceivable that Blagojevich is not guilty of any criminal offense – even though his behavior as a politician was petty, juvenile and mind-numbingly vapid.

ONLY THE MOST hard-core of rural Republican partisans can have trouble accepting that fact.

The bottom line, I suppose, is that I don’t know what to think of whether Rod Blagojevich would accomplish anything by persuading his attorneys to let him testify this time around. His attorneys will only say that they won’t make that decision until the last possible moment during the legal proceedings.

It may well be that Rob Blagojevich knows his brother and his capabilities better than we do. Perhaps Milorod has it in him to make the prosecutors look ridiculous for wasting federal tax dollars to do a second trial (rather than just accept a prison term of a couple of years for his one conviction from the first trial).

But somehow, I suspect everybody is going to come across as looking ridiculous from “Blagojevich 2 – the Hairdo Returns.”

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Obama caught in the act of being honest

OBAMA: Speaking the truth?

Perhaps it is something about setting foot in the Chicago metropolitan area that brings out the ability of political people to just say what’s on their mind.

I still remember the moment from a decade ago when then-candidate George W. Bush got caught on a microphone referring to a New York Times reporter who showed up for that year’s End of Summer event in Naperville (heaven forbid they celebrate Labor Day like everybody else) as a “major league asshole.”

TO WHICH RUNNING mate (and later Vice President) Dick Cheney responded, “yeah, big time.”

Was anyone really shocked that Bush would not be pleased with someone who could see through the veneer of competence he tried putting up to overcome his callow nature?

If anything, it is in that same context that I view the latest political gaffe of someone saying something that got caught on a microphone. President Barack Obama, while in Chicago for his fundraising efforts, went on a little diatribe that made it clear he IS disgusted with the people whose politically partisan games are aimed squarely at him.

I’d be concerned if Obama really was as mellow as the public persona he always tries to put forward. It was nice to see that on some level, the political tactics being used against him are registering. Despite what the conservative ideologues want to believe about a radical president, I was starting to wonder if Obama was too willing to compromise his beliefs to be an effective leader.

IT SEEMS THAT what has Obama miffed is the fact that Republican partisans want to undo the reform of health care that was a major part of his work during his first two years in office. Not that it’s going to happen – the Democrat-controlled Senate would stand in the way of anything the GOP-run House of Representatives would try to pass.

Plus, Obama himself still has that “veto” power to stop bad things from getting pushed into law by a partisan Congress. (As Mel Brooks used to say, “It’s good to be the king!”)



BUSH: The potty mouth?



As captured by CBS News, Obama said privately to people near him Thursday night, “I said, ‘you want to repeal health care? Go at it. We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we’re stupid?”

He also was upset about the fact that Republican partisans in the House tried to take out their ideological opposition to a woman being able to abort a pregnancy by trying to disguise it as financial matters and budgetary concerns.

OBAMA ALSO WAS critical of Rep. Paul Ryan, a budget committee chair who has led much of the rhetoric during the stalemates that nearly resulted in a shutdown of the federal government (which some ideologues were more than willing to do because they were desperate to believe that people would blame Obama for their own stubborn streak).

As Obama described Ryan in what he thought was private, “this is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill, but wasn’t paid for.”

Now I’m sure that some ideologues are going to claim that it is disrespectful for Obama to talk negatively about their ideals and to mention Ryan by name. I’m sure there are some people who are going to say that Thursday night in Chicago was some sort of significant moment that exposes Obama for what he truly is.

You know what. They’d be correct.

WHEN OUR PRESIDENT gets p’o-ed and says what he really thinks, he thinks in detail about specific policies and criticizes a specific official for his actions. Can anyone really say that Ryan didn’t do the things that Obama said he did?

RYAN: Will he arrogantly demand an apology?

We can argue whether or not it was appropriate for Ryan to act in such a way. But I don’t read anything coming out of his mouth that he’d actually have to apologize for – unless you believe that the ideologues of the world are entitled to complete deference, which is about as un-American thought as one could express.

It’s certainly on a higher level than George Bush showing us his mind resorts to profanity when he sees someone who has been less than deferential to him (and that was the reaction of the right back in 2000 when Bush spoke – they tried claiming that his critics deserved to be thought of in such a manner).

Obama certainly didn’t give us a one-liner that deserves to be remembered in the microphone gaffe “Hall of Fame.”

IN FACT, IF not for the fact that the ideologues are going to want to make something of this moment, it would be the ultimate non-issue.

Unless you believe that a politician who speaks the truth is such a rarity that we ought to treat every such utterance as an historic occasion.

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A soccer “school” in Chicago? Maybe we are that desperate to boost school quality

A part of me wants to think that the United Neighborhood Organization has come up with a truly dippy idea when it talks of wanting to create a new elementary school in Chicago that would use soccer and athletics as its focus.

The group, which already includes among its activities the operation of nine charter schools in neighborhoods with heavy Latino population where the area public schools have declined so badly that the locals don’t trust them, has plans for yet another charter school.

YET THIS ONE, tentatively proposed for 51^st Street and Homan Avenue in the Southwest Side’s Gage Park neighborhood, would use soccer as a theme.

Students who manage to get accepted to the school through a lottery of area applicants would get soccer as a large part of their physical education requirements, and students would be expected to take part in after-school drills and scrimmages.

Part of the point is to take young people who show some promise with the sport, and give them some intense training so as to develop them as futbol players (I mean real football, not that stupid game the Chicago Bears likely won’t be playing this autumn).

It is not definite if the Chicago Fire professional soccer team will have any involvement with the academy, although team representatives were present, along with some from the University of Illinois at Chicago soccer program, when UNO officials announced their plans earlier this month for a soccer school.

THERE IS ONE other thing that isn’t specific – the academics, although UNO officials insist that students at the soccer school will get a rigorous educational curriculum that will prepare them for high school. If the idea works well enough, UNO may someday use the charter school concept to create a soccer-themed high school that the elementary school would feed into.

Regardless of whether they operate their own high school someday, or merely feed into existing high schools, the point of all this is to prepare students who when they get to high school will take on a college-preparatory academic curriculum to get themselves ready to attend college someday.

That is the key factor, and the one that will decide whether this idea has any merit, or if it really is dippy at heart.

Because UNO officials say they see one goal of this program to prepare Latino neighborhood youth to go to college. By developing their athletic skills, it might make it possible for them to be good enough ballplayers to get the limited athletic scholarships available for the so-called lesser sports.

UNLIKE MEN’S FOOTBALL and basketball programs, many big colleges don’t feel the need to have every single team member on a full-ride scholarship. So one usually has to be a particularly skilled athlete who won’t have problems complying with the academic requirements to be eligible for athletic scholarships to get that full-ride for soccer.

I’m going to be curious to see how academics is integrated into the program. Or, as the Chicago Tribune reported, if the integration ends with the idea of naming school classrooms after the nations of the world that have hosted the World Cup tournament (including the United States in 1994) since it was first created in 1930.

Because it doesn’t do anyone any good to have a young athlete go off to college and flunk out after one year because they couldn’t cut it academically. It is instances such as those that are such a waste, because the sport was allowed to interfere with a person developing themselves to get ahead in life.

And as for those who might want to think that the athletic skills alone are enough to play professionally and set one-self up for life, I have seen too many ballplayers who signed some “big money” contract – only to wind up spending it all too quickly or losing it all through bad investments that they have nothing to show for it.

MY FEAR IS that we may have some Latino youth developing in Chicago who will think that developing the perfect bicycle kick in and of itself is the key to success in life, rather than realizing that developing the kick (along with the more mundane, but necessary, skills of passing and shooting the ball) merely gives them access to the venues (the universities themselves) that will prepare them to succeed in life.

Then again, it’s not like this problem would be limited to the students at this school. I have seen too many teenagers throughout the years, particularly among African-American youth, who are convinced that their ball-handling skills on the basketball court are the be-all and end-all to life.

I have also seen too many who used those skills to get their chance to play college-level basketball, only to fail to take advantage of their time while on a university campus that could help boost themselves as individuals.

I’d hate to think that UNO, a 27-year-old activist group that takes on so many projects to try to improve life in Latino neighborhoods, is going to wind up putting many Latino youths in the same mindset – with the only difference being that they’re creating kids who learn to dribble a ball with their foot, rather than with their fingertips.

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