BHS Day 1: G. Van Standifer and the Midnight Basketball League Program

Hi! Every Tuesday throughout the month is the Community Spotlight, where I hope to highlight everyday heroes who may not be famous for their accomplishments but have done something to better their local community or the Black community as a whole.

Name: G. Van Standifer

Why is the Spotlight on today? For creating the MBLP, or the Midnight Basketball League Program

What is it? A local basketball league meant to get young men off the streets during peak crime hours, help them set life goals and strive for better

Brief history: 

G. Van Standifer was the mayor in a Maryland-based city when he came across the knowledge that most crimes in his area were committed between the hours of 10PM and 2AM. In order to get the youths off the streets and give them something productive to put their energy towards, he founded the non-profit Midnight Basketball League Program. The program took off, and in addition to receiving national coverage in magazines and news stories, the crime rate in the area did, in fact, begin to drop. 

In addition to basketball, which attracted the main target audience for that area, life improvement workshops and programs were also added in order to help the youths remain off the streets and better their lives. The organization expanded to include local chapters in other cities in order to help target the youths in that area and get them off the streets. After the death of G. Van Standifer in the early 1990s, his sons, Eric and Nelson, took over their father's responsibilities in running the organization. Unfortunately, due to changing local leadership and decreasing donation amounts, several chapters were shuttered. 

In the mid-2000's, two men who still believed in the vision behind the organization, Lawrence Gray, Jr. and Emanuel Hunt, Jr., bought exclusive rights to the company's official information in order to bring the organization back, where it is still in operation today. The founder's son, Nelson Standifer, serves as the President of the league as well as the Southeast Regional Director of the organization's original chapter in Glen Arden, Maryland. The program has expanded to include more than 20 local chapters and has added on a program called Scared Stiff, which specifically aims to help decrease gun violence in teens and young adults. 

To inquire about starting a program in your local community: 

Contact the Board of Directors

Further reading links: 

MBL | Scared Stiff  |

Overall, the Midnight Basketball League Program and the more recent addition of the Scared Stiff program are both awesome contributors to a community and it's also awesome that such an organization was started by African-Americans. It's no secret that many urban neighborhoods often have high crime rates, and I think one of our issues as a community is that there often aren't many places for youths to go, so they end up going to the streets. The MBLP is not only productive, it gives youths the motivation that many of them need to eventually make it out by helping them learn to make goals, re-direct their attention to more worthy outlets, and find out what they'd really like to do with their lives. It has had a positive effect on the communities it has been implemented in, and for that reason, I think it deserves today's Community Spotlight. Do you have a Midnight Basketball league program in your area? I hope you enjoyed today's Spotlight and I'll see you tomorrow!