Hoops 4 Hope, which for 30 years has worked with at-risk children in Zimbabwe and South Africa, using basketball as a draw, and the LuMind Foundation, whose aim is to improve the lives of those with Down syndrome, benefited from hotly contested hoops tournaments at the Sportime Arena in Amagansett recently.
Both tourneys attracted former East Hampton High School stars, among them Marcus Edwards and Mikey Russell, who led their Bonac team, coached by the late Ed Petrie, to a state final in 2008, and Brandon Kennedy-Gay — though Anthony Providenti, who oversaw the Double Dip LuMind 5-on-5 competition on Aug. 2, said he wasn't about to let the above-named trio play together, preferring to spread the talent around.
And, given that 72 players turned out for the Double Dip, there was plenty of talent to go around, as 12 teams vied in Kevin Coffey and Jeff Korek divisions from which the finalists emerged. Besides Edwards, Russell, and Kennedy-Gay, the list of former local high schoolers included the Shapiro brothers, Jon, Jesse, and Will; the Locascio brothers, David, Brian, Michael, and Mark of Pierson; John Lupo; Nick Thomas, who led his Bridgehampton team to a state championship in 1996; Kyle McKee; Chris Messinger, and Thomas Nelson. Brian Marciniak, who often plays, did not this year because of an injury.
Providenti, whose son Troy has Down syndrome, said that his tourney "benefited three causes — the LuMind Foundation, which is focused on research efforts on behalf of the Down syndrome community, the South Fork Bakery, which provides employment training for people with special needs, and the Ideal School of Manhattan, which provides individualized education."
It was the 20th year for the Double Dip party, held at Providenti's house off Old Hedges Lane in East Hampton, and the tournament's 13th. "Thanks to many advances," he added, "people with Down syndrome have doubled their life expectancy over the last few decades, but with that has come the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease early on, in one's 40s or 50s. . . . At present, there are several Alzheimer's treatments available, and clinical trials, but they have as yet not benefited the Down syndrome community. It's a call to action."
Back to the tourney: Nate Grossman's Truth Teller team narrowly defeated Will Shapiro's Big Beautiful Will five in the final. Grossman was named the tournament's most valuable player. That evening, at the party, whose attendees numbered many basketball and tennis players, Mikey Russell, whose team was knocked out in the first round — testimony to Providenti's democratic spirit — said he would love to coach here someday.
Neither Russell nor Edwards played in Hoops 4 Hope's 3-on-3 tournament Saturday, but Kennedy-Gay, who played Division II ball at L.I.U. Post and D-III at SUNY Brockport, did. And, largely thanks to his outside and inside play, Rumson, a team that included Theo and Finn Carlston — both counselors at Mark Crandall's Sportime camp — did.
That final, versus Unaccompanied Minors, a team led by Otto Luessenhop, an East Hamptoner, was, as were all the games played before it, physical . . . to put it mildly. The Minors, thanks to a layup and a subsequent basket from beyond the arc by Luessenhop, jumped out to a 9-3 lead, but Kennedy-Gay's trio fought its way back. He tied the count at 14-14 with a layup, which he followed up with a fallaway jumper, treating Rumson to its first lead in the fray. A few moments of frenzied action later, netted shots from beyond the arc and inside by Kennedy-Gay put his team over the top, at 19-16.
Crandall and Anthony Allison, who is spending more time in Africa now at Hoops 4 Hope's Zimbabwean and South African centers, told the some three dozen circled players before the tournament began that it was their youth-centered organization's 30th year.
In that time, H4H has grown greatly, Crandall said afterward, outside the arena at a table filled with memorabilia that included an impressive pair of Shaquille O'Neal's sneakers, a basketball signed by W.N.B.A. champions, Nat Butler's recently published book of extraordinary photos that he's taken for the N.B.A. over the past 40 years, and David Hollander's "How Basketball Can Save the World," a book in which Hoops 4 Hope's Ubuntu ("I am because we are") mission in 70 African schools figures prominently.
Hoops 4 Hope, which has won United Nations and Olympic Committee awards, has over the years helped "tens of thousands of young people" and has become generational, Crandall said. Kids who were once counseled to develop the seven "tools" that a champion needs — integrity, responsibility, a sense of humor, self-awareness, self-esteem, focus, and the Ubuntu spirit — are now admired Hoops 4 Hope counselors.
Its Zimbabwean center's founding director, Ngoni Mukukula, who died of diabetic complications in January at the age of 55, was posthumously declared a national hero by the Zimbabwean government. "Ngoni's legacy lives on," Crandall added. "Everyone has stepped up. A new court in his name is being built in his community."
In recent months, Crandall and Howard Wood, who recently was named, along with his younger brother, Kenny, to the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame, have read from "How Basketball Can Save the World" at the East Hampton Library and at the Montauk School, whose third graders have connected with their peers in Africa through the internet. "They've become pen pals," Crandall said, "though connections across the miles are made so much quicker now."
