For the love of basketball; Black History Classic Basketball Showcase

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

“Whenever it comes to anything that has to do with the youth, I think it’s very important to have support. So many of our young people don’t have the support of us adults or anyone they could look up to. It’s nice to see them doing something positive.” ~ Michelle Golding (Owner, Hair Lounge on the Shore)

Everywhere they look, our children, and teenagers are faced with significant social pressure. They are confronted with the option of engaging in criminal activities, social media temptations, and drugs. Research continues to show that this problem has been found to be most severe in low-income neighbourhoods (U.S. Department of Justice). Unfortunately, sometimes children living in these neighbourhoods are left unsupervised and inactive for several hours after school ends.

Thankfully, there are members of the community who remain actively engaged in the community and move with purpose. One such person is Curt McClean.

Curt is the founder of CM Sports Tours. He specializes in basketball team tours, camps and tournaments in Toronto, and the Caribbean. Seven years ago, Curt acknowledged that there was more that he could do in the community, especially when it pertained to young people. He recognized the power of sports. On Sunday, February 9^th, 2020, Curt hosted his seventh Black History Month Classic Basketball Showcase.CM SPORTS has a account

“Basically, there’s nothing really in Toronto or Ontario in our area (Halton Region) that pertains to black history as a basketball tournament. So, seven years ago, I figured let’s give back and celebrate black history doing something that we love. Basketball is something that everybody loves. I started the annual basketball tournament, and it’s grown from 8 teams to 24 teams today.”

News of the tournament has spread, and because of this, the tournament has grown.

“This year, we have two teams from Ottawa, two teams from London, and teams from Hamilton, Markham and Newmarket. We added a female team this year. It was requested by a lot of coaches that want to be involved with the black history tournament. We had the Halton Regional Police play yesterday against one of our teams. Today, we have the Peel Regional Police playing another team today.”

“We have 24 teams from all around Ontario. There will be MVP for the Top Female Team, Top Junior Team and Top Senior Team. The age group ranges from 14-19 years old.”

Curt garnered a lot of support from partners in the community. Some of his sponsors included: London Basketball Authority, Motion Marksman, Thornlea Thunder, Blyth Academy Basketball, GTA Prep, DunTalk, BarnBubner, Universal Hoops, and even the Toronto Caribbean Newspaper got involved.

We had an opportunity to check in with some of the sponsors and talk to them about why they decided to get involved. The amazing personality known as Michelle Golding, Owner of Hair Lounge on the Shore, expressed the need for more support from the community.

“There are a lot of young people who have so much talent, but they don’t have the support from their parents and their community to get them into basketball. It needs to be a community effort – not just effort from the parents.” 

We also had a chance to catch up our stomachs with some healthy treats provided to us by the T- Fitness and Nutrition team. We ended up chit-chatting with Maria Naimouchina and Amar Saron who are the Nutrition Advisors at T- Fitness. Amar opened up on how difficult it was for him as a young man growing up in Scarborough, and why he is so determined to do something that was not available to him.

“There are a lot of young men and women that are looking to go into business for themselves and they don’t know what to do. Sometimes a former athlete becomes injured, and their school or team discards them. We take them, we nurture them, and we turn them into businessmen and women.  

We also work with young men and women that have a difficult time getting corporate jobs. We teach them how to start their own businesses and mentor them through the process. They can come to us and we can change their lives if they want to change their lives. That’s what makes us who we are.”

Curt has big plans for the future. He has set his sights high. “Next year, we’ll probably do something bigger. We’ll definitely need more than one location and I am hoping to have 34+ teams next year.”