Different worlds find common ground

BY MICHAEL DOBIE | STAFF CORRESPONDENT

LOVELAND, Colo. - Third in a series - Two unmarked vans pulled into the parking lot. A group of teenagers wearing dark blue warm-up suits spilled out and lined up, two abreast. Swiftly, they counted off to 22 -- all present and accounted for -- then walked into the gym at Resurrection Christian School.

It was the first week of January, and the second time in a month these two Denver-area high schools would play each other in boys basketball.

The junior varsity players from the visiting school, Metro Academy, were escorted to a locker room to prepare for their game while the varsity climbed to the top of the stands and sat down to wait.

At the other end of the gym, a girl from Resurrection Christian nudged one of her school's players.

"Who are they?" she asked.

"School for juvies," came the reply.

"Oh, well, good luck," said the girl, unfazed.

Sports often is a melting pot, a place where people from different backgrounds and cultures meet and find common ground. Rarely does the pot include prison inmates.

Metro Academy is a maximum security prison for juveniles. Because the average age of its inmates is 17, Metro also functions as a high school.

Very likely, it is the only maximum security prison in the country whose sports teams play against regular high school teams in a regular high school league.

Sometimes, Metro hosts its opponents. Sometimes, it takes its soccer, basketball and track and field squads out into the community for games on the road. No matter which side of its 16-foot fence its felons play on, Metro hopes the inmates learn something that will help them fit better into society when they return to it.

But the high school students they play sometimes learn every bit as much.

That's what happened back in December when newly opened Resurrection Christian traveled to the west Denver suburb of Golden for its first meeting with Metro.

"They were really scared to go in there," Resurrection Christian athletic director Peggy Haag said.

"It was nerve-wracking, the fences and everything, that kind of freaked us out a little bit," co-captain Walt Peeples said. "We didn't play great because, I guess, I would think it had something to do with the fact that we were nervous."

Said Peeples: "I was expecting elbows to the face."

Metro won, 79-40. Peeples and co-captain Chris Carls said it was the most memorable game they had played.

"The boys talked about it for a week afterwards," Haag said.

"I'll remember it for the rest of my life," Carls said. "I mean, it was intimidating and they escorted us with guards, but these are good guys, as far as what I can see. They play hard just like us."

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