Worthy Goal: Better Living Through Youth Hockey

David Wilk loves hockey.

He started playing when he was 12. Led his graduate school team in scoring two years in a row. Ask him his height and he’ll say “5-9, on skates.” His favorite players? Well, there’s Wayne Gretzky, Tony Granato and Gilbert DeJesus.

Gilbert DeJesus?

That’s right. DeJesus was an 18-year-old from Harlem, one of hundreds of youngsters whom Wilk has taken from the streets of New York at an early age and exposed to the joys of his favorite sport.

“He couldn’t skate too well, but he could sure handle the stick,” recalled Wilk, 38, who seven years ago founded Ice Hockey in Harlem, a nonprofit organization aimed at helping underprivileged youths like Gilbert. “He had a lot of heart.”

Over the years, Wilk’s program grew in size and reputation. Kids whose closest contact with ice had been a glass of soda started body-checking and slap-shooting their way to prep school scholarships.

Walt Disney Co. officials were so impressed with Wilk’s program that they hired him last week to head a similar youth hockey program in the poorest Latino neighborhoods in Anaheim. With typical Disney fanfare, the program was renamed, linked to the Mighty Ducks franchise and hailed as the National Hockey League’s first such youth hockey program.

For Wilk, it’s a chance to make a career out of what previously had been only a labor of love.

“I never got paid for this before,” Wilk said at a recent interview from a Mighty Ducks office in Anaheim Arena. “I had wanted to be an example. I wanted to show that if I could volunteer my time, then so could other people.”

That type of idealism, however, changes slightly when you have to uproot your wife and three children from Teaneck, N.J., move to Orange County and still pay the bills.

Living here, he said, is a necessity.

“You can’t really start a grass-roots organization without hanging out in the grass,” said Wilk, who was born and raised in New Jersey.

For much of his life, Wilk has had two obsessions: hockey and helping those less fortunate than he. After graduating from Rutgers University in 1977, where he “majored in hockey and economics,” he went to work for a community development agency helping the elderly in a run-down section of Philadelphia.

Three years later, he went back to school, this time at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, where he continued to play hockey and studied to become “a good government type.” Upon graduating, he went to work for the city of New York in its real estate and finance department but “quickly discovered government was no fun.”

From there, Wilk joined Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Inc. as a budget manager. But he grew restless working at the alcohol distilling giant and started to develop the idea of starting a hockey program. After two years, he left the company and began consulting work so he could devote more time to his youth hockey program.

“It was something I felt was worth pursuing,” he said.

Since its inception in 1987, Ice Hockey in Harlem has been widely praised for its work and has been visited by scores of NHL stars.

Wilk had recently started passing responsibility for the program to others, to give himself more time with his family, when Disney approached him last August with the idea of starting the program in Anaheim.

“It was exciting,” he said.

Still, Wilk was leery of Disney’s intentions.

“I was concerned,” he said. “I didn’t want it to be just a surface program. I wanted to know how they would go. I didn’t want it to be a schlocky PR deal.” But after months of discussions, Wilk was convinced that Disney’s interest was genuine.

“If I didn’t feel that they were committed, I wouldn’t be here,” he said.

Disney had its own demands. Wilk would have to forsake his allegiance to his beloved New York Rangers and become a Mighty Ducks fan.

“I like the Ducks,” he said. “They’re scrappy . . . but I can still root for the Rangers.”

As announced, the Disney program, dubbed GOALS--Growth Opportunities Through Athletics, Learning and Service--will target underprivileged youths in two of Anaheim’s most crime-plagued neighborhoods: Jeffrey-Lynne, which is less than a mile from Disneyland, and Ponderosa Park.

As he did in New York, Wilk intends to teach a group of youngsters the skills of hockey. Along the way, he hopes to steer them away from the drugs and gangs that are so prevalent in their young lives.

“If you give kids alternatives that are fun, they are going to be drawn to them,” he said. “We want to teach them how to be good hockey players, but we need to teach them to be good people and responsible people. And the only way to do that is to treat them as your own kid.”

The program will go beyond athletics to include after-school classes and participation in community service events. All the equipment and ice time will be supplied to youths free of charge as long as they participate. More advanced skaters will be encouraged to become “mentors” to less-experienced ones.

Specifics on the number of youngsters, volunteers and staff involved in the program have not yet been determined, Wilk said.

Anaheim will present Wilk with a different set of challenges than New York. For one thing, there will be a language barrier between Wilk and his predominantly Latino pupils. Also, he said, many of the residents in the two neighborhoods tend to be very transient.

“These are things we’re going have to deal with,” he said. “On the plus side, there is a business community, civic community and political community that are wildly enthusiastic about the program. The folks in Anaheim have been very impressive.”

Anyone who wants to volunteer for the program is urged to call Disney at (800) 49 GOALS.

Profile: David Wilk

* Age: 38

* Hometown: Neshanic, N.J.

* Lives: Teaneck, N.J.

* Education: Bachelor’s degree in economics, Rutgers University; MBA, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

* Family: Wife, MeRim, three children

* Height: “5-9 on skates”

* Proudest athletic accomplishment: Led graduate school hockey league in scoring. “I was kind of a chippy rascal player, which I developed because I was small.”

* Attitude: “I was concerned. I didn’t want (the Disney youth hockey program) to be just a surface program. . . . I didn’t want it to be a schlocky PR deal.”

Source: David Wilk