Basketball is a skill as well as a tool.
John Bailey uses it as both when standing with generations of Denver youth. Since 1977, his Joint Effort Hoop Festival has been held at multiple venues, involved thousands of participants — mainly from inner Denver — drawn hordes of fans and scouts, provided early look-sees at future college players and modestly been one of the constants within the basketball community.
But its message remains the same.
“I’m all about education,” said Bailey, a figure active in Denver who has dabbled in assorted community ventures, worried about kids for decades and tried to do something for them. “Without a doubt, we’ll talk about responsibility and values.”
Of his many seats in gymnasiums, including his usual spot in the front row at top Denver Prep League games, Bailey has viewed the locals who have headed off to college and excelled as well as cringed at others who have gone off and washed out. Worse, he has seen city kids never get their chance. Many didn’t care until it was too late or botched their chances through an alarming array of trouble.
“We want kids thinking about other things than drugs, getting pregnant and alcohol,” Bailey said.
How about kids just being kids and working toward a future?
This year’s weeklong series, which began Monday with lower levels to juniors in high school at the Hiawatha Davis Recreation Center, site of Bailey’s high-end pro-am games, will continue today through Saturday at Manual’s Thunderdome. As year- round as any game, this particular stop on the Colorado tour of basketball will include Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups, who has credited Bailey as vital to city kids, as co-chair.
Names will be particularly relevant. Bailey will honor “the legends” of city basketball, an inaugural salute to the exceptional who have dazzled on local courts.
You may recall some of them. Manual has had a ton, perhaps the best walk down Denver’s court of memory lane. Carl Ashley. Dennis Boone. Clint Chapman. Donald Ray Edwards. Larry Farmer. Harry Hollines. Horace Kearney. Cedric Milton. Myron Nunley. Johnnie Reece. Micheal Ray Richardson. Chucky Sproling. Lavon Williams.
How about East? Sam Batey. Joe Barry Carroll. Sean Ogirri. Ronnie Shavlik. Richard Tate. Rayford Tillis (now Sayyid Abdal-Rahman). Chuck Williams.
Of course, George Washington had Billups. Rick Fisher. Tracey Jordan. Abraham Lincoln? Keith Abeyta. Mike Rebich. Thomas Jefferson? Dudley Mitchell. Montbello? Craig Jackson. South? Mark Williams.
Among coaches, the recognized will be Ed Calloway Sr. Al Oviatt. Lonnie Porter. Joe Strain Sr. Paul Coleman. Bill Weimar.
“It’s an opportunity to show they haven’t been forgotten,” Bailey said.
This year’s field will include senior all-staters Thomas Bropleh of GW and Gage Wooten of Eaglecrest. Laura Palmere of Mullen is among the high end of girls players. New Jersey and Pennsylvania account for a portion of the out-of-state representation.
Bailey admitted Billups got “too big” as a player toward his final days of eligibility, but has returned as an adult out of respect for the chances provided to him in grade school.
“Hopefully, these kids will come in and be receptive,” Bailey said.
