Today’s Kids Still Follow a Leader

Platitudes will fly Tuesday when America celebrates the day Jackie Robinson painfully integrated major league baseball 50 years ago. Dignitaries will proclaim his legacy. Coaches will wonder if the message has trickled down.

Send them to Jackie Robinson Sports Stadium in Southwest Los Angeles.

Hundreds of children walk through the stadium each day, passing a bronze plaque bearing Robinson’s name.

The Little Leaguers taking batting practice here speak of the sacrifices he made. The track team members stretching on the grass admire his determination. The soccer players dribbling around cones see the universal themes in his life story.

Coach James Robertson, who leads the Los Angeles Jets Track Club that practices here, wonders if the kids really understand.

“They walk by his plaque and never stop,” he says.

Coach, they get it.

On a baseball diamond outside the stadium, center fielder Christopher Hills, 10, was practicing with his teammates.

“There are a lot of things I could learn from Jackie Robinson,” he said. “I could learn how to focus, lift my legs when I run. Try my best in everything I do.”

“He opened the door for everyone to follow,” said Obea Moore, an 18-year-old track star who practices with the Jets at Robinson Stadium.

Moore and teammate Xavier Savant, 18, both attend Muir High School in Pasadena, where Robinson went to school.

“What amazes me is that he was out there by himself,” Savant said. “I can look at Michael Johnson or Michael Jordan. Their drive encourages me. When you have someone ahead of you, it tells you you can do it.”

Stories about Robinson’s fearlessness and determination grabbed the attention of 13-year-old Daniel Leathers. “He didn’t back down,” he said.

Devin Hollins, 14, admired his ability to focus despite the pressure from racist insults.

His life was an inspiration for Chasen Walker, 14. “He worked hard and it’s because of people like him that I realize that nobody can take away my pride, nobody can hold me back,” he said.

The bronze plaque at the entrance of Jackie Robinson Sports Stadium reads: “For serving as an inspiration to the nation’s youth.” The stadium, which sits among several bustling sports facilities at Rancho Cienega Park, was dedicated in 1973, a year after Robinson died at the age of 53.

Jaclyn Stamps, 17, from Immaculate Heart High School in Hollywood, said that the example set by Robinson gave her strength.

“He was an example that if you strive to be the best, you will succeed,” she said.

To many of the adults at the park, the lessons to be learned by Robinson’s struggle to overcome racism and poverty have not changed over the years. You still have to be twice as good, you have to work twice as hard, they say.

“His legacy is that each should be the best you can be, not only as an athlete but as a human being,” said Christopher Hill’s father, Maurice Hill, a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff who coaches his son’s Ladera Little League team.

For many, sports still represent a way to overcome racism and the trials of urban violence.

“You have to learn to deal with the negatives, you have to have a strong positive sense of yourself to keep out of gangs,” said Dre Green, 42, another Little League coach.

In the book she wrote about her husband, Rachel Robinson said his legacy lies in giving young people “the tools to remain hopeful and build their self-esteem, as well as the opportunity to lead meaningful lives and give back to others.”

Coach Robertson, who grew up in the projects and still credits a track coach with showing him a better way to live, works that theme. He tells his athletes that to truly understand Robinson, they must visualize their generation as receiving his baton and passing it on to the next.

“You don’t just land here with talent,” he tells them. “There are those who came before you and those who will come after you. You learn from those who came before, and you have an obligation to give something back to those who come behind you.”