{"id":1906,"date":"2018-04-24T15:43:25","date_gmt":"2018-04-24T19:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/?p=1906"},"modified":"2018-05-03T15:40:19","modified_gmt":"2018-05-03T19:40:19","slug":"leonard-and-the-lost-boys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/2018\/04\/24\/leonard-and-the-lost-boys\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonard and The Lost Boys"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Former NFL player Anthony Leonard stands outside Gilpin Court’s only basketball court. (Photos by Nidhi Sharma)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

by Nidhi Sharma<\/p>\n

Anthony Leonard is a bull underneath his soft edges, hiding in plain sight. On most days, the former San Francisco 49ers cornerback plays pick-up basketball with kids at a resource center in Gilpin Court, a government housing project in the heart of Jackson Ward.<\/p>\n

To the young people who come to the Gilpin Resource Center\u2019s after-school program, Leonard is simply \u201ccoach.\u201d His voice doesn\u2019t carry far over the sound of a dozen sneakers scraping the court, but the kids hang on to pretty much every word he says.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s rhythm in the noise of the game, a tempo of teasing as the ball passes from player to player, a determination on every face. This isn\u2019t just a game, and it isn\u2019t just basketball.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Boys play basketball after school at the Gilpin Court Community Center.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

A majority of Gilpin Court’s high school-age kids go to George Wythe High School, according to Leonard. The graduation rate there is just 57 percent.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of these kids come from troubled homes,\u201d Leonard said. \u201cThey come here, they make friends, they have fun. They\u2019re great kids, and they\u2019re great athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The field a couple yards over is where Leonard\u2019s own athletic career started. In the early days of his childhood, he played football after school right here in Gilpin Court. Eventually, he went on to play for Virginia Union University, the Detroit Lions and finally for the San Francisco 49ers. The field in question sits where it has always been, patchy and green, waiting for its next star athlete.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m done playing now, though,\u201d Leonard said. \u201cI bust my leg to pieces, got 32 stitches. Now I\u2019m here because of these kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard introduces me to every kid who passes by. That\u2019s a great kid, he says\u2014no matter who it is. It\u2019s immediately obvious that Leonard gets them; he was them. These kids are loud. They\u2019re brash and they\u2019re curious, and they love being photographed.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re like most kids, but it\u2019s stupid to compare them to the average American child. They\u2019ve grown up with the stigma of having been failed by the system.<\/p>\n

Most of the players stand crowded around the hoop, squinting up through the sunshine. One of the kids, Sanorus, makes a shot from all the way across the court \u2013 and the crowd goes wild.<\/p>\n

He introduces me to his friends: \u201cThis is James. And this is Long-head, and this one\u2019s named Weirdo,\u201d he jokes. He\u2019s full of joy, and everyone laughs. Leonard smiles down proudly from outside the court.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a look every kid deserves to get.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthony Leonard is a bull underneath his soft edges, hiding in plain sight. On most days, the former San Francisco 49ers cornerback plays pick-up basketball with kids at a resource center in Gilpin Court, a government housing project in the heart of Jackson Ward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4014,"featured_media":2094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[85253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-far-side-of-95"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2018\/04\/IMG_5761-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7o53H-uK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4014"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}