Inner City Games Merge Sports and Social Contact

At a time when human relations experts say the Los Angeles area is divided into geographic enclaves, the Inner City Games bring together youths who otherwise would have no contact with each other.

The meeting ground is a basketball court or an athletic field, where boys and girls from 9 to 18 not only sharpen athletic skills but also learn firsthand about other racial, ethnic and cultural groups.

Last week, for example, a team of girls from middle-class Ventura met a squad from urban Los Angeles, the Crenshaw Fundamental Hoops, at the Hollenbeck Youth Center.

Sam Triana, coach of the Ventura Galaxy, said that at first his team was hesitant about playing in Boyle Heights, an area portrayed in the media more for its gang problem than its hard-working families.

“We were kind of scared coming in here, but everyone’s been very nice,” Triana said. “Each time they [the Galaxy] played there, they felt more comfortable.”

Crenshaw Hoops coach Marshall Dismuke said that although his team lost, what mattered more was that teams from different areas learned to respect each other.

“I love it. That shows people from other places that no matter what color or race, you can still get along,” Dismuke said.

The games, the brainchild of Hollenbeck executive director Danny Hernandez, began in 1991. In the beginning, participants were primarily from the inner city, but competitors today come from a much wider geographic area.

Thursday night, the Heat from Monterey Park defeated the Ventura girls, 35-25, for the championship in the 13-to-15 age division.

Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, chairman of the Inner City Games, handed out medals.

“I was once in your situation,” he said. “I grew up with no money, but I didn’t consider myself poor. I had a dream. No one who has a dream is poor.”

Four weeks of competition are culminating in championship games this week among hundreds of teams drawn primarily from community centers and clubs, said games sports director Jose Correa. Up to 30,000 boys and girls participate in one form or another in competitions ranging from boxing to essay writing.

The baseball finals will be held at USC on Sunday to give youths a taste of the campus environment.

The Hollenbeck Youth Center, the games’ sponsoring organization, began in 1971 as a boxing club in a bomb shelter underneath the Hollenbeck police station, said Rudy DeLeon, one of the club’s founding members.

In 1977, the club moved half a block west to a one-story building. By 1998 it had been expanded into a sprawling, three-story center equipped with a basketball court, a boxing ring and a weight room.

In addition to sports, the center offers computer training and programs geared toward at-risk youths, such as trips to colleges and cultural institutions.

Joe Hicks, director of the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, said programs such as the Inner City Games help to teach acceptance and respect to youths of different backgrounds without having “adults wag their fingers at them and saying, ‘We have to tolerate each other.’ ”

The athletic competition brings “respect in a genuine way,” said Hicks, “because it is held in a more relaxed atmosphere, where kids play on a more level playing field.”

Frank Villalobos, president of the Eastside architectural firm Barrio Planners, said the games played a key role in helping youths come together in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

The idea of the games, which are privately funded, has spread to 11 other cities, and Schwarzenegger is also head of the national Inner City Games Foundation.

Each city has devised its own way to carry out the games, said Bonnie Reiss, the Santa Monica-based national director.

The Ventura Galaxy players were attracted to participate in Los Angeles because they are highly competitive, said Triana. Most of the girls will attend Ventura’s Buena High School, which has a well-known basketball coach and program.

Triana said that both the Galaxy players and their families felt welcomed by the parents of rival teams.

“I think that [the games] are doing a great job of bringing communities together through sportsmanship,” he said.