Vancouver – President Denise Coutts is pleased to announce the hiring of Chad Cowles as the new Business Development Manager of the Night Hoops Basketball Society. The local non-profit organization encourages healthy lifestyle choices for at-risk youth through a late-night basketball program with a life-skills component. Night Hoops removes youth from the streets on Friday and Saturday evenings when peer pressures relating to gang activity, drug and alcohol abuse, mischief and other negative influences are the strongest.

Coutts notes that Night Hoops, like most small non-profit organizations, struggles with funding. “Each year, we never know if we are going to be able to generate enough funds to survive another year. We run a great program on a shoe-string budget and our Board determined that we needed to build our capacity and focus on long term sustainability.  As a result, we changed our staffing model and I am thrilled that we have been able to hire Chad to fill this position.”

Chad has been coordinating the frontline league operations of the Night Hoops program since 2007. As a Vancouver Park Ranger Captain and with vast experience in youth programming, he has an extensive Vancouver Park Board and Burnaby School Board network. His passion for basketball stems from three successful years (2001-04) playing with the Kwantlen Eagles and in high school he was a provincial level player with the Penticton Lakers. He truly understands and appreciates the impact that Night Hoops has on our Inner City youth. He has witnessed players become coaches and referees, and coaches and referees move onto professional careers. Chad’s focus for the program will continue to be capacity building in our communities and sustainability.

Night Hoops

An evening basketball program for at-risk youth initiated by a UBC alumnus is now enjoyed by youngsters from all kinds of backgrounds.

By Teresa Goff

(L-R) Glen Morgan, Nathaniel Jang, Parsa Moeni and Fitsum Zewdu are keen Night Hoopers.

A procession of teens, all boys on the cusp of adulthood, flows into the Edmonds Community School gym in Burnaby. It’s Saturday night and they’re here to play basketball. They crow and strut, make their rounds of high fives, and call out to one another: Yo, yo – Number One – Let’s do-oo this.

One of them, Glen Morgan, is in grade 11 and like all guys his age he says he never gets scared. At the edge of manhood, fear, like vulnerability, needs to be squashed or, at the very least, silenced. But not so long ago, as part of the Night Hoops Senior Boys’ basketball roster, Morgan’s team played at the Burnaby Youth Custody Services Centre. That place scared him.

The centre’s team filed onto court wearing identical orange jump suits, which they immediately stripped down to the waist, exposing bare chests. Morgan saw someone he recognized: a class comedian who had ended up on the inside, now being rewarded for good behaviour by being allowed to play basketball. Each of the Senior Boys’ teams in the Night Hoops league plays at the youth correctional institute once during the four-month season, and the experience isn’t lost on them. “If we didn’t have ball — if we didn’t have Night Hoops,” says Nathaniel Jang, one of Morgan’s team mates, “half of us could be in there.” Almost inaudibly, more to himself than anyone else, Morgan says, “Easily man, easily.”