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Manatee Basketball Court Builds Community

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By ANTHONY CORMIER / Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: December 25, 2007

BRADENTON - Sheriff Brad Steube did something that nobody has ever done around here before:

He spent more than $30,000 in seized drug money and built a regulation basketball court at the parking lot of the Manatee County Sheriff's Office.

Slowly, the court is starting to get some use.

A few children shot around on Thursday. They came from a nearby neighborhood, where a 9-year-old boy was killed by gunfire this year and gang violence is part of everyday life.

On Friday, a bunch of friends from around town played five-on-five before dusk, though it seemed like their mouths were moving faster than their legs. On Christmas Eve, three guys listened to R&B using a red, white and blue basketball.

Beyond the pickup games and the afternoon shoot-arounds, there is kinship at the court, however slow it is to take life.

This is the reason Steube ordered the court, even though he figured on taking heat from critics who would call it a perk -- especially if the only people to use it were deputies.

But Steube, who has made addressing rising gang violence a priority at the department, hopes the court becomes a gathering place for nearby children and young adults. He sees them heading to the mall and hanging out in dangerous neighborhoods.

Why not at the Sheriff's Office basketball court, where no one would dare sell drugs or flash gang signs? Not with all those squad cars parked nearby.

"We've got to get these kids off the streets doing something positive," Steube said.

Building a public basketball court on the department's lot is almost unheard of in the area, players and sheriff's officials say. If it is a success, the move will become the latest in a string of unconventional decisions by the department.

Charlie Wells, Steube's predecessor, grew to statewide prominence on the back of innovative programs, like a farm program that puts inmates to work, a food processing plant to make the jail self-sufficient or a now-defunct youth boot camp that was the first of its kind in Florida.

Yet it is not the first time that public officials decided to use confiscated drug money for basketball.

Around the state, nonprofit groups and community activists stage "Midnight Basketball" programs in struggling neighborhoods.

In Bradenton, the city police department gives about $5,000 a year in drug seizures to a program at the Boys & Girls Club. Organizer Raphael Allen says the games are so popular, that they could fill other nights at other gyms.

"We've thought about doing it up in Palmetto, Rubonia," Allen said. "You get them in the gym, away from whatever is going on in their own neighborhoods. They're not out their selling drugs, getting into fights. They're doing something positive."

The Sheriff's Office court is certainly in a unique spot. DeSoto Square Mall is across the street.

A mobile command center and camouflaged SWAT truck are sometimes parked in the same lot. A major thoroughfare, 301 Boulevard, runs nearby.

Steube, himself an all-county guard in the 1970s, braced for critics. But, so far, there are no naysayers, least of all the players.

The people who used the court in the last week gave it high marks, as well they should for that kind of money.

The asphalt is smooth and free of the cracks and dimples found on older outdoor courts. A fence is covered in vinyl, so it does not leave cuts and red marks when you inevitably crash into it.

The hoops are big and forgiving.

Last week, between games, Reggie Corbett and his friends gave the court the best possible review: "We're going to keep coming back."

In fact, Corbett, 35, was asking for more.

"Tell the sheriff we like it," he said. "And tell him that if they ever build some lights out here, and a water fountain, there's no telling how many people will show up."

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