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“Kids
down here look just like shadows…”
--Bruce Springsteen
“For the past three years, we’ve intentionally lived in a rough neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio.
Many ‘kids down here’ spend their days trying to dodge drugs, hunger and bullets. They, often, don’t have fathers and/or mothers at home.
One of the few outlets many here have is sports.
And within these sports venues, the kids need positive adult role
models to mentor them, encourage them, to just be there for
them for that matter.
To that end, my wife Liz and I have coached a youth league baseball team. After the first practice, I told the players to go home and practice some on their own as well.
“Can we borrow a ball?” One boy asked.
Liz also volunteered her time to help coach a neighborhood gymnastics class at a local church. (She was involved with gymnastics in New Zealand and coached gymnastics in New York for a time.)
And our son Joseph and I regularly get in pick-up basketball games at the Michael J. Zone Rec. Center up the street. I try to teach the kids about, not only the fundamentals of the game, but about the fundamentals of life.
In turn, they run me ragged.
During a recent campaign stop in Northwestern Ohio, I told a Findlay Courier reporter that an occasional pat on the back and an encouraging word to some of these kids may mean the difference between them: joining a gang or, well, joining a church.”
--Joe
