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."

'Worst of the worst'

The game in January at Resurrection Christian was the rematch. Resurrection Christian wanted it to be special, so the private school's parents offered to host a dinner for the juvies.

The staff at Metro was surprised. When Metro applied in 1996 to join the coincidentally named Metro League, numerous objections were raised by administrators and parents at some of the league's mix of Christian schools, small public high schools and exclusive private schools. As one athletic director at a Christian school told Metro Academy founder Bill Wiener, "We don't really want our kids playing with these kinds of kids."

The concern was to be expected. Metro's 230-plus inmates are the highest-risk youth felons in Colorado. "The worst of the worst," Metro athletic director Matt Santangelo said.

According to Metro officials, three-quarters of the residents have substance abuse problems; more than half require treatment. Nearly 30 percent have major mental health problems. Three-quarters were not attending school when arrested. Many were in gangs. Most had committed previous offenses. Nearly half are violent offenders; more than a third are sex offenders.

The entire day at Metro is structured to provide help.

Mornings are for classes. Varsity point guard Bryson Williams, who was 16 at the time, took U.S. geography, earth science, reading and a transition prep class this spring. Michael Johnson, the 6-5 varsity center, had math, earth science, reading and world history. Both players earned their high school diplomas in May. The afternoon is for counseling sessions, treatment groups and homework. And, for those who make a team, sports.

Metro, like many youth facilities around the country, believes that sports is an essential component of rehabilitation.

"Sports is as much a part of the treatment program as their groups or their education," said Caren Leaf, director of Lookout Mountain Youth Services Center, which runs Metro Academy.

Few youth institutions anywhere use sports to the same degree as Metro. High school physical education classes help kids combat addiction by trying to change patterns of behavior. Metro also has a system of intramurals in which points for sportsmanship and teamwork are added to the score on the field and can influence the outcome. The varsity and junior varsity teams are like graduate school, and one of the few ways residents have of getting "off hill."

"Leaving grounds," Leaf said, "is the highest privilege."

Nearly 90 inmates tried out for basketball this past season. More than 70 came out in 2002-2003 for wrestling, which recently was cut along with cross country for budget reasons.

Eventually, Wiener convinced his peers in the Metro League to give his kids a chance. After allaying concerns about security and gang members coming to games, Metro was accepted in a 10-4 vote. Its teams even won a sportsmanship award from the Colorado High School Activities Association in 2000-01.

"We've come a long way," Leaf said.

Still, the dinner invitation from Resurrection, which is not a member of the league, was a big deal.

"That was about the coolest thing I ever heard," Santangelo said.

"It's one thing to go out and play ball," Leaf said. "It's another thing to sit down and eat with them."

The day before the visit to Resurrection Christian, the players were told about the dinner. They promised to be on their best behavior.

Many were nervous. This was Metro's first road trip of the season. For most of the players, it was their first time beyond the fence. Some had been locked up for as long as four years.

"They're going to be scared," said Leaf, who grew up in North Bellmore and went to Mepham High School. "This is conservative Anglo land. They had one kid of color on their team. Their standards are going to be very white and our team is not."

Uncertain times

The eight Metro varsity players in the stands, all of whom were black or Hispanic, had been wondering about the reception they would receive at Resurrection Christian.

"Last time they came to play with us they said they don't look at us as criminals, they look at us like a regular team, somebody else that they just play against," Williams said.

But this time Metro was at Resurrection, and Williams hoped people there would see him as a regular person, too. The uncertainty left him uneasy.

"Just going out there, playing against a different school, lot of people around," Williams said. "I'm not used to it like I was before, when I was out."

In the Park Hill neighborhood of Denver, Williams was a drug and alcohol abuser and a member of the Bloods street gang. He arrived at Metro, his fourth juvenile facility, in March 2003 to serve a sentence for aggravated robbery. He was released in May. The transition was difficult, he said.

"When I first got here I was messing up," Williams said. "Cussing out staff and all that, just not caring no more. Told them I wasn't going to do nothing when I first got here. I would refuse to do everything. I was just here to do my time, just let me do my time and go home. I had a couple fights."

In August he was caught smoking marijuana and had to wear the all-green uniform that signifies a resident is on a disciplinary program.

"I knew I had to turn it back around . . . I'm glad it was before the season," said Williams, who was motivated by the chance to play basketball.

Williams worked his way up the ladder from level 1 to level 3, then made pre-Eagle, the third-highest level at Metro. Each rung brought new privileges -- an extra phone call per week, a later bedtime, permission for family members to bring food to keep in his room.

In the fall, Williams' flag football team reached the intramural championship game. With five seconds left, the opposing team completed a pass but Williams said he grabbed the receiver's flag short of the goal line as time expired. One teacher signaled a touchdown, another disagreed, so they put 3 seconds back on the clock. The other team scored a touchdown on another final play and won the game.

"I was mad," Williams said, wagging his head. "I didn't deal with it good. I went off. I was ready to fight, yeah, had our jerseys on, I took the jersey off. Then I got into a couple people's faces, ready to fight with them. I almost got restrained."

But he stopped.

"I just told them, 'Man, I'm all right, just let me walk back by myself, let me go back by myself,'" he said. "I hated losing like that, damn, getting cheated."

Williams admitted he would have fought on the outside. He also said he didn't know for sure what he would do now.

The element of doubt adds tension to Metro's contests. Spectators and opponents, especially those playing Metro for the first time, don't know what to expect. Metro's staff watches carefully, too.

"All the things we teach them, this is where they get the chance to practice it," Leaf said. "Think about it: Impulse control, anger management. What better place to practice that than on a court? Someone charging at you, someone calling you a murderer, a rapist. What do you do?"

As Williams and his teammates settled into their seats in the stands, the girl from Resurrection and her friends walked across the gym to the exit, part of the parade of students leaving school for the day. They all passed in front of the kids from Metro. Most stole furtive glances at the strangers. Some smiled, some quickly looked away.

The Metro players noticed. Johnson, the team's gregarious and socially-confident 18-year-old center, saw the attention as a positive.

"To be honest with you, it makes me feel a little good," Johnson said with a crooked smile, "because I got people with me and, like: 'Oh, where's he from?' Varsity team. It makes me feel a little special."

By Metro's standards, the players were special. They had to be cleared to travel by an athletic council that evaluates their behavior by checking daily written feedback from teachers, counselors, coaches and administrators. Santangelo then contacted each player's client manager, a kind of parole officer, who notified victims of each player that the inmate was traveling out of the facility that day.

In the eight years Metro has fielded teams, Leaf estimated seven residents have escaped. Two wrestlers took off from a match the staff thought was being held in one gym, when it actually was staged in two. Now they request floor plans for every facility on every road trip. Another time a track runner went to the bathroom, realized he could get lost in the crowd, and did. Now everyone needs permission and is escorted. Two years ago, the basketball team went to Pizza Hut after the last game of the season; two kids ran on the way back to the van. All were quickly captured and returned.

"It's a challenge," Wiener said.

So much so that when the wrestling team went on overnight trips, the staff confiscated each wrestler's belongings except for one T-shirt and one pair of underwear before putting them to bed.

Nothing that drastic was necessary on this trip. But Johnson admitted he felt a tug as the vans sped along the highway past his old neighborhood of Thornton. He could see the brick apartment house in which he used to live, the go-cart track he frequented, streets he had run in. He had been tempted to bolt.

"It kind of got to me, you know what I mean," said Johnson, who was serving a sentence for auto theft. "Knowing I got family just right there, you know what I mean. And I can't be right there, I've got to be right here, I mean, in a locked-up facility, looking between fences and stuff just to see my freedom."

It was a lesson with lots of sharp edges. Basketball was giving him a taste of life on the outside. It was temporary. But it was enough.

"That keeps me going right there, getting off hill," Johnson said. "It wouldn't be like I wasn't tempted to break on them. I was, but it ain't worth it. I ain't got that much time left. And even if I did, like I told them, like I told coach, these gates could fall over right now and I won't go nowhere." Five months later, he was released.

Breaking bread

As Metro's players gathered in the locker room before the game, there was a lot on their minds.

"Any questions?" coach Joe Washington asked after finishing his pregame instructions.

"When's dinner?" Anthony Flores responded.

First they had to play the game, and it was exciting. Resurrection Christian cut a 13-point deficit to three in the fourth quarter but Carls rimmed a three-pointer that would have tied it with 45 seconds left. Williams converted a layup for the final margin in a 46-39 Metro victory.

Afterward, the two teams joined hands, made a circle and prayed.

"Thank you for good sportsmanship and how hard you play, guys," Carls said.

A few minutes later, Carls and Peeples emerged from their locker room, disappointed but impressed.

"Of all the teams we played, they have the best sportsmanship of everybody," Peeples said.

Both games with Resurrection Christian followed the same script. When called for fouls, Metro's players simply handed the ball to a referee. None took any cheap shots at the Cougars. Peeples said he found himself wondering about Metro's guys as they ran side by side down the court.

"I mean, you don't know what they've done," Peeples said.

"Not that I should be there, but I'm just one mistake away from being there so they're not that different," Carls said. "They've done something we haven't, I guess, but . . ."

And his voice trailed off.

They walked into the next room where the dinner tables were set in a giant U. Metro's players faced their Resurrection counterparts in a tableau of black and white.

Williams and Johnson sat across from Peeples and Carls. Williams was 13 the first time he was arrested. Johnson was a gang member at 11. Both wore their hair in tight braids. Peeples was president of Resurrection's student body, carried a 4.0-grade point average and had been nominated for both West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy.

Now he watched as Williams held up a metal fork, eyed it curiously, then presented it to his teammates.

"I haven't seen one of these in a long time," Williams said.

The place settings had alarmed Santangelo when he and Leaf arrived earlier in the afternoon. Metro uses only plastic utensils.

"Whoa, they have real silverware. And they have knives. What do we do?" Santangelo said.

"We want them to have normal situations. This is normal," Leaf said.

She sounded worried but confident, like a mother who knows her children have taken swimming lessons but still frets when they jump in the pool.

"They'll be fine," she said.

They were better than that when the parents started bringing out the food. There were huge salads, slabs of Salisbury steak, piles of green beans almandine, baked potatoes and big slices of bread. And there were seconds of everything. Then came the cheesecake.

"Don't do this to me," Metro's Johntay Jones moaned in mock despair.

"Do we play these guys again?" teammate Michael Ricks asked.

Two girls from Resurrection sat down near one of their players, just across the table from Jones.

"I know you have a whole bunch of boyfriends," Jones said. "You must have three boyfriends."

"Actually, I don't have any," the girl replied.

"What! Guys around here don't like pretty girls?" Jones said.

At the other end of the table, Resurrection players were questioning the Metro guys about their crimes.

"Some of them asked what's the worst thing they did," Haag marveled.

"It's the generation," one of the Resurrection mothers replied. "We couldn't do that."

At the end of the dinner, someone clicked silverware against a glass and Johnson rose.

"I want to thank you all for letting us come up here and doing this for us," he said.

"We appreciate it," Williams seconded, "and I hope you all have a great season."

Everyone applauded. After one last set of handshakes, the kids from Resurrection began drifting out and heading home. Metro's kids stayed behind, feeling good about the evening.

Peeples and Carls stood outside the gym.

"In the beginning it was hard to initiate conversation but then we started talking," Carls said. "We were talking a lot about basketball. We asked them what they do at their place."

Dinner left them with much to think about.

"A different perspective on people. What I thought before and what I think now," Peeples said with a shake of his head. "It was good, it was fun talking to them, hearing about what their school does and everything. It was pretty close. Well . . . I guess they're stuck in a jail."

They had started with basketball. Then they ate, swapped stories and told jokes. Now Peeples had decided to focus on the things they shared.

"They did something wrong and it has to be bad, we know that. But they're not that different from us," he said. "They did something wrong and it seems like most of them feel bad about it."

Back in the room the kids from Metro waited -- to be escorted in small groups to the locker room where they were strip-searched before the long ride home. Every road trip ends that way, with someone checking to make sure they're not going home with anything. None of the players objected. They knew the deal.

No one from Resurrection seemed to realize what was going on.