From Aryan to a bigger brotherhood

BY MICHAEL DOBIE | Staff Writer

Frankie Meeink was a skinhead, and a member of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood. And he was playing football in prison with a bunch of black guys.

"When we were in the huddle, the black dudes on the team used to motivate me," Meeink said. "They'd say, 'Come on, you're a skinhead, man, hit that black dude. Represent.' "

His story is confounding and its resolution unlikely: A violent, racist, gay-bashing teen from South Philly does time, emerges from prison, and brings together kids from different races through hockey. All because he played football in prison.

"I always thought I'd be a skinhead, I'd be part of the movement. I always thought this was prison, I'm just surviving, I thought I'd get out and things would be back to normal," Meeink said. "I got out and saw there was much more to life than beating people. Through sports and other things, God kind of proved the point to me I was wrong."

Meeink was 13 when he was sent to a juvenile facility in Philadelphia on a charge of aggravated assault in 1989. He broke home arrest, and was re-arrested in Illinois for kidnapping. At 17, Meeink was sent to Graham Correctional Center in Hillsboro, where he signed up to play football, soccer and volleyball.

Prison recreation supervisors say sports can cut through racial and gang barriers, and often form teams with that goal in mind. The theory worked with Meeink.

"I got stabbed in prison over a stupid little fight," Meeink said. "You know who came to help me? Tony Montana, this black guy, our quarterback. He came over and he was the one who kind of put his arm under my shoulder. For one thing, he cared: Not that we were friends, I was his starting wide receiver."

Meeink found his beliefs challenged.

"When you're in prison and a skinhead, you think black guys won't talk to you, everybody hates everybody. It isn't like that," Meeink said. "Tony, the black guy, he says, 'You ready for the game?' 'Yeah, we're going to kick their asses.' You'd talk about it that day."

Meeink remembered that bond when he returned home after his release in 1994. He contacted the Philadelphia Flyers and, with help from the team and civil rights lawyer Michael Bonnie, founded the Hockey for Harmony Foundation.

"I said I'd like to put what I learned in prison from sports into practice," Meeink said.

The program began in 1996 with 20 inner-city kids from diverse backgrounds and grew to 120 by the third year, Meeink said. Meetings included locker-room conversations about race issues, followed by hockey games.

"We can't sit here and say we've got to learn to love our differences, for kids that's almost impossible," Meeink said. "But when we say we grow up in the same city, we have the same ---- police, we have drug dealers on our corner, too, they can relate to that."

The lesson was reinforced in the rink.

In 2002, Meeink relocated with his wife to an undisclosed location far from Philadelphia. He does motivational speaking, mostly on college campuses: "Because I'm so uncensored," he said. He tells audiences he'd still be in prison if not for the sports he played there. And he tells them about his black teammates.

"One guy [on another team] kept cheap-shotting me, I was hurt," Meeink said. "The guys in the huddle were holding me so I wouldn't fall. They held me so no one else would see. It was us and them.

"We were representing Cell House 1. That's all that mattered."