The big doors of Anshe Emet Synagogue swung open on August 6, and 50 or so kids entered the sanctuary, their eyes wide. Most of them were black preteens from the south side who’d never seen the inside of a synagogue, and they were there as part of the weeklong Ricky Byrdsong Not Just Basketball Camp. “We use basketball to get the kids in the door, so to speak, but we’re not really about basketball,” says Carlton Evans, executive director of the Ricky Byrdsong Foundation, which sponsors the camp. “We take the kids to different ethnic museums and restaurants. We’re trying to break down barriers and build tolerance.”
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Byrdsong moved into the nomadic existence of college coaching, following jobs from town to town across the country. “For a time he was coaching in Arizona, and we got to see each other a lot,” says Evans. “Ricky and [his wife] Sherialyn would come over for Thanksgiving. Our kids became friends. But you know how it goes in that business–he got another job and moved on.”
In 1993 Byrdsong hit the big time when Northwestern hired him as its head coach. “Coaching in the Big Ten is about as high as you can go in that profession,” says Evans. “I was so proud of him.”
But on Friday, July 2, just a few weeks before that year’s camp was supposed to start, Byrdsong was murdered by white supremacist Benjamin Smith. Smith, who killed another person and also injured eight other people, began a three-day shooting rampage by firing at Orthodox Jews as they walked home from Friday services in West Rogers Park. He then drove to Skokie, where he shot Byrdsong, who happened to be walking outside his house. Over the weekend Smith drove to Bloomington, Indiana, where he murdered Won-Joon Yoon, a 26-year-old Korean graduate student. Eventually police closed in on him, and after a high-speed chase he shot and killed himself.
Most of this year’s campers, for whom the camp is free, come from the Englewood Boys and Girls Club, the south-side Rebecca Crown Youth Center, and the Hyde Park Jewish Community Center. (Next year Evans hopes to bring in kids from Hispanic and Asian centers as well.) Each day of the one-week camp begins with diversity workshops led by two social workers, Barbara Belcore and Naisy Dolar. Afterward the kids play basketball–spirited games refereed by Brian Latman, sports director for the Hyde Park JCC; Patrick Pender, youth worker at the Crown Youth Center; and several teenage counselors Evans recruited from local high schools. Then the kids gather at center court for 30 minutes or so of motivational speeches.
“This is a buffet–you can eat what you want and as much as you want,” Evans told the campers after they’d taken seats around the dining room. “I ask that you be respectful–don’t waste food. If you take it, eat it. If you don’t want to eat it, don’t take it.” They went up to the steam tables in an orderly procession and piled their plates with fried chicken, greens, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and stuffing.
