Softball offers safe haven
BUILD keeps kids on the field, out of trouble

@homeChicago Feature Article 8/26/03
By Jorge Ribas

It’s a sweltering August day in Wicker Park. The type of day you sit by the beach, occasionally leaping into the cold blue of Lake Michigan to cool off. The type of day you sit in the shade, sipping lemonade and fanning yourself lazily. The type of day David Orosio stands by the dusty dugout urging on his team of junior high boys.

Orosio coaches kids involved in the Broader Urban Involvement and Leadership Development (BUILD) summer softball program. The West Town-based non-profit has focused exclusively on problems associated with gang participation and violence for 33 years. The organization estimates that it has worked with some 80,000 youths over the years. Typically, BUILD works with about 1,000 young people every year, reaching into Uptown, Logan Square, Cabrini Green, Wicker Park, West Town and Humboldt Park.

The coach brings special expertise to his coaching duties: he is also a gang prevention specialist at BUILD. Clapping and whistling on the sidelines, Orosio offers positive reinforcement for good plays and bad, telling one runner to hold on base, for example, and urging another to play deeper in the outfield.

The softball program offers youths a safe alternative to life on the street, and a healthy outlet for competition. Like many other young people, DeMorris Enoch, 18, and Andy Mesnard, 15, play softball in their green all-star jerseys in the summer, but they’ve got basketball, flag football and other activities in the fall and winter.

A safe way to compete
Coach J. W. Hughes of Evanston stands on the first base side, urging his young players to run through the ground-out, take an extra base on an overthrow, and keep alert on fly balls. Another gang prevention specialist at BUILD, Hughes has been coaching in these games since he started working at the agency 15 years ago.

“The games are a great chance for the kids to interact with kids from other neighborhoods,” Hughes said. “The games get pretty intense, but it’s positive, it’s competitive.”

Top players from the BUILD softball league’s 10 teams are selected for annual all-star games at Thillens Stadium in Rogers Park for pee-wee (elementary school), high school and alumni divisions.

Bragging rights
A high point of the season is always the annual game against the neighborhood police team. BUILD works with about 10 gangs in the city, and numerous gang-associated cliques. Program director Roslind Blasingame said although the police game can get pretty intense, good sportsmanship has always prevailed. The same spirit of friendly competition pays dividends long after the last out is made.

BUILD staff watch the annual all-star game at Thillens Stadium. Photo by Jorge Ribas

“The respect for the game carries over to the outside,” says Blasingame. “The kids and cops see each other in a different type of situation than the normal, more hostile one.” The bragging rights that come with beating the cops foster a friendly antagonism that can lead to closer ties.

Jimmy Ramos, 33, has been involved in BUILD since he was seven years old, first as a client, then as a volunteer and currently as a board member. These days he is an instructor for the Chicago Police Department Training Division. Ramos said the games give kids from the neighborhoods a chance to see a side of Chicago they may never have known existed. “It gets them out of the neighborhood,” he said. “I think that when they come and see this stadium they get a sense of accomplishment.”

He said the young people who participate in BUILD are there because they want to get away from their daily lives, ones far removed hitting a softball into the outfield and playing catch in the grass. Says Ramos: “They have to know there’s more to life than gangbanging.”

Related Links
-BUILD homepage

-Chicago Police Department