SAN DIEGO — San Diego can be paradise, but in the Southeast end-- kids often have a harsher reality. Sometimes, life is even cut short, before it has a chance to really start.
Lincoln's Head Basketball coach Jeff Harper-Harris been more than just a basketball coach to the community of Southeast San Diego. He has been a figure who is actively trying to improve the lives of these kids and show them there is more to life than what they have come accustomed to.
Marcus: “Coach why do you have such a passion to get these kids off the streets and into the gym?”
Coach: “I saw a lot of inner city kids in my community who had a chance to play, but for whatever reason, was getting bad advice or bad breaks and in the community, you know, to going back and forth the gang situation. I just started, you know, nonprofit San Diego Cougars, hoop a lot out of Southcrest Park in Jackie Robinson YMCA. I just took kids that wanted to play basketball, and basketball was a carrot. Keeping them off the street was the main thing.”
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Marcus: What’s the biggest challenge you face with helping these kids?
Coach: “Somebody asked me a while back, who in the coaching business is always your rival, who's your toughest rival coach, and you know, who's your toughest team? I tell them, I don't have a rival coach that I say is a battle against. It's the streets, that's the biggest team that I fight every day because they got to, they got they coach 24 hours, they finding ways to get kids to do whatever for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They don't stop coaching.”
Marcus: What do you think the end game is for this? What is the overall picture?
Coach: “To believe and to trust that we did it the right way. To believe that it was bigger than basketball, to get it to the point where you understand that the last basket or the last dunk is not the end, It's not the end game. Do we want to win? Yes, but when they walk across that stage at graduation that’s a win. It may seem corny or cliché, but that's a win. For me personally, that's a win.
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