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{"id":42,"date":"2024-05-03T03:47:58","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T03:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/spring-2024\/blasscyk\/?page_id=42"},"modified":"2024-05-06T22:50:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T22:50:57","slug":"by-brooklyn-blasscyk","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/spring-2024\/blasscyk\/","title":{"rendered":"By Brooklyn Blasscyk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Picture a group of students playing cricket. To the untrained American eye, it may look like a baseball game with a pitcher preparing to throw toward someone at bat \u2014but it is shaped more like a paddle here. There\u2019s a small handful of kids clad in white scattered around the field, eager for the ball to come their way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this match isn\u2019t being played at a posh school in Britain or at an elite prep school on the East Coast. The unlikely playing field is the grass patch at Kelly Park in Compton, and the young players come for the most part from lower-income communities across South Los Angeles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are they doing here? Despite the unexpected environment, they\u2019re still learning about teamwork and determination while having fun a little outside of their comfort zone, just like any other youth cricket team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a growing community of organizations working to make historically elite sports more accessible to L.A. kids, regardless of their geography, and financial, racial or ethnic backgrounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Kelly Park practice is the work of the Southern California Junior Cricket Academy (SCJCA, for short), founded by Mustafa Khan in 1995. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bats new and old, wooden and plastic, make up the cricket academy\u2019s gear. Photo by Brooklyn Blasscyk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Khan was inspired to start the organization by hard times. In the early nineties, his father, mother and sister died one after another in his early forties. He lost his home shortly after. In 1995, he checked into a Downtown Los Angeles community for people without housing called Dome Village. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, one of the community volunteers introduced him to cricket, a sport he had heard of but knew little about. Three months later in the summer, he found himself on a grass pitch in the rural village of Hambledon, England, competing in an international tournament where the sport was born in 1750. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Khan talks about cricket, you would think he is a reborn pastor delivering a sermon: \u201cIf cricket can change me at the age of 45 and restore my faith in God and in life and make me productive again, imagine what it could do for young kids in the inner cities.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was this moment of realization for Khan where the cricket academy was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sort of belief, that once-elite sports can have a transformative effect on young people in underprivileged communities within Los Angeles is at the root of efforts to make them accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cricket, polo, squash and field hockey \u2014 sometimes labeled as \u201ccountry club\u201d or \u201cIvy League\u201d sports \u2014  have historically been accessible largely to the children of upper-crust people, whether as a result of the costs associated with playing or access to the courts, fields or grounds where they are played. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of these factors apply to other costly sports \u2014 horseback riding, golf and fencing\u2014 and they can also require admission into exclusive private programs. Some of those barriers have faded with time amid efforts to make such sports more accessible, but there are social and cultural barriers, as well. If no one tells a child they can play a strange sport, why would they even want to? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are reasons. Such sports can even reinforce elite status, setting players apart and facilitating admissions to prestigious schools and clubs, meaning that underprivileged players might use them to enter circles of influence that they might not otherwise be able to access. Harvard\u2019s acceptance rate for recruited athletes in all sports was 88% in 2018<\/a>, while the overall acceptance rate was merely 5%. So being a rowing star can facilitate admission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the U.S., such elite sports are often centered in the northeast, where the Ivy League institutions that tend to grant them special value, reside. In 2019, of the 7,000 registered Ivy League athletes, 195 were recruited from Fairfield County, Connecticut, where the median household income in 2021 was $101,194<\/a>. In comparison, for all of West Virginia, one of the poorest states with a much larger population than Fairfield County, just two of its athletes accepted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking Barriers<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some elite sports like golf and tennis have diversified economically and racially thanks to trailblazing role models and other factors, maybe sports like cricket, lacrosse and rowing can follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of widening the player pool to broaden access to new sporting opportunities is nothing new. The 20th century saw many athletes break barriers and make way for players from all backgrounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Jackie Robinson \u201cbroke the color line\u201d in 1947, he became the first Black professional baseball player permitted in Major League Baseball. When he played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers, it marked a dramatic social change in the most popular sport in the United States. In the 77 years since then, baseball has become a sport reflective of the nation\u2019s \u2014 and some regions of the world\u2019s \u2014 many diverse communities. Other major sports, like basketball and football followed a similar path, and eventually some elite sports did too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Australian Open-The Williams Sisters<\/a>\u201d by <\/em>Julie Edgley<\/a> is licensed under <\/em>CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With Compton serving as the backdrop, Venus and Serena Williams began learning tennis despite it being a sport with a notable shortage of prominent Black women in the game, with one large exception: Althea Gibson, one of the first Black athletes to win a Grand Slam. The Williams sisters went  on to win Olympic golds and dozens of Grand Slam Tournament titles between them. They also served as inspiration for a subsequent generation of players, like Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka and Alycia Park.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Playing the Long Game<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cricket was unheard of in Compton, according to Khan. Without easy access to the sport with elaborate rules, cricket is something few big-city American kids ever get a chance to try. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexander Gonzalez and Angel Celaya are in sixth and eighth grade, respectively. Gonzalez has been practicing with the cricket academy for almost a year, while Celaya has been on the team for more than five. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both of them had no idea what cricket was when they first approached the team practicing in Kelly Park. Khan and assistant coach Chris Olivares invited them over to learn. Later, they offered them a chance to practice regularly. Celaya ended up joining the team in 2019 and Gonzalez joined last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gonzalez (at bat) and Celaya (bowling) keeping practice light and cracking jokes. Photo by Brooklyn Blasscyk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gonzalez and Celaya aren\u2019t thinking of cricket as a plus for college admissions down the road. They\u2019re just kids who want to play a sport none of their friends have heard of. It gets them out of the house, as they don\u2019t have the option to practice at home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gonzalez, who is a foster child from Compton, explained, \u201cI have a car in my backyard and a pool, so my foster parents won\u2019t let me play back there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So they go to Kelly Park every Saturday morning and start warming up practicing underarm bowling and bat swing stances. While a handful of players, including Gonzalez, walk a few blocks from nearby homes, others like Celaya require a greater commitment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coach Olivares describes how even getting the kids to the park can be a challenge, asking Celaya, \u201cHow many times have I had to pay for your Ubers to get to practice? How many times have I given you a ride?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But once they\u2019re here, they focus for the next three and a half hours on a short version of the game (some cricket matches can last up to five days). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked what quality they\u2019ve learned the most while playing cricket, the two boys respond with the same answer immediately: \u201cPatience.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019ve also honed their communication skills both on and off the field. Learning how to effectively convey strategies and provide support for their teammates is crucial, but as Olivares attests, this has also benefited their communication with coaches. The players are more likely to flag an issue ahead of time and work through a solution with their coaches rather than sit by idly and let problems fester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s more than just picking up new skills. For some of these kids from Compton, the tournaments and related field trips mark their first time out of town, giving them access to new cultures and walks of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Underdogs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

RowLA\u2019s competitive team captain and high school senior Emily Lopez knows she\u2019s not the typical rower. Coming from Crenshaw, rowing was not only something she was unfamiliar with, it was unimaginable unless she somehow magically managed to live by the ocean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When RowLA came into her life in middle school, she had to make going to practice accessible. Today, she commutes by city bus at five in the morning to Basin H in Marina Del Rey for practice an hour later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in the marina, Lopez leads her team despite not having the \u201cinsane\u201d \u2014 meaning, expensive \u2014 boats her competitors race with. They don\u2019t have a plethora of high-end uniforms they can choose from depending on the race, and they don\u2019t have their own boathouse. None of this matters to Lopez and her teammates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, when she travels with her team to contend in regattas, which are competitions for rowing, she must mentally prepare herself for the high-end teams she\u2019ll be up against: \u201cWe’re definitely looked down on as a program because we’re so little.\u201d The teams they\u2019re competing against have 45 girls, while RowLA has just 10 girls ready to compete. And because the program is relatively new compared to others  \u2014 they only started 10 years ago \u2014 they lack the history that might earn them respect: \u201cThey\u2019re like, there goes RowLA, watch them try<\/em> again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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RowLA is an organization that subsidizes most of the costs associated with rowing for young girls and women anywhere in Los Angeles County, with members hailing from Glendale to Inglewood to Culver City. With RowLA, it doesn\u2019t matter what your background is. Anyone who wants to join and is willing to commit to the program has the opportunity to participate with a scholarship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While these scholarships and the program as a whole are funded largely through private donations, former executive chair Desa Philadelphia noted the discrepancy between her program and more established, affluent ones on the other side of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philadelphia details how the average East Coast elite team member they compete against might be paying $3,500 to attend their regattas. \u201cThat’s our fee for the whole year,\u201d Philadelphia says. While this is still a pretty penny for some families in the program, if she can lower the barrier to entry so that the price of private rowing instruction is less, she considers it a job well done. By contrast, she says that some coaches in the Northeast charge $25,000 a year per athlete for their training. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as the underdogs at regattas facing off against well-funded teams with lots of training and the best equipment, Lopez and her team remain steadfast. \u201cIt was scary at first,\u201d she said.  “And then, I mean, we raced and I saw that we were with them. We were just as good. And it was like, \u2018We can do it without having all that extra money, all that like legacy.<\/span>‘”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking Through<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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