Years ago, as an All-City First Team running back for San Francisco's McAteer High School, Fulton Mitchell dreamed of coaching rather than playing.
Now, 10 years later, Mitchell is doing just that. As a director of San Francisco's Joseph Lee Recreation Center, Mitchell gets to live his dream, coaching and making a positive impact in his community.
Mitchell's office at the Joseph Lee Recreation Center is a reflection of the community he serves, and his impact on the lives of the young people he mentors. There are two desks in the small, sparsely decorated, dingy kiosk-turned-office. On one sits an old, black, corded touch-tone phone, a neatly organized stack of papers and booklets, and an old space-heater. The other desk is covered completely with beautiful, tall golden trophies from basketball, football and assorted other youth sports championships. On the Wall behind the two desks is a framed painting of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.
Located at 1395 Mendall Street, just off Third Street in San Francisco's ill-reputed Bayview District, the rec center is surrounded by tough, lean streets.
"A lot of these kids have no parental support," said Mitchell shaking his head, "A lot of them have no fathers, and when they do, there isn't always a lot of parenting going on. A lot of the time, I end up being like a third parent."
Each year for the last 3 years, Mitchell has taken teams from the rec center to Hawaii to participate in the World Youth Basketball Tournament. Finding the money to do it hasn't always been easy, but with help from San Francisco's Recreation and Parks Department, the Goldman Fund, and the Bayview Hunters Point Foundation Mitchell managed to take 50 children with him to participate in the event.
"Taking the kids someplace really has an effect on them, on their behavior and their attitude," Mitchell says from under his Nike visor, "These kids walk around here (the neighborhood) with their heads down all the time, scowling and looking over their shoulders to watch out for who's doing what. When the kids get off the plane in Hawaii their heads come up, they stop slouching over and watching over their shoulders... they start smiling and showing a real sense of pride."
By taking these kids out of the Bayview, away from streets they have learned to fear and a culture that has conditioned them to expect less from themselves, Mitchell manages to show them their true potential, not just as basketball players, but as people.
On their first trip to the world championship tournament on Kona, which was also many of his players first time on an airplane, Mitchell recalls watching his team suffer "the best loss I've ever seen" to a team from New Zealand.
Over the course of the tournament, their charm and warmth (not to mention their amazing talent) won the admiration of many of the foreign teams, particularly the team from New Zealand. The New Zealanders overheard Mitchell's kids rapping and joined in, and the two teams began trading local underground rap tapes with one another.
Sure enough, members from both teams, now best of friends, found themselves matched up in the tournament's championship game.
"We were a better team, but we lost that game," recalls Mitchell, "They lost that game and they (the kids) were really upset, some of them started crying right there on the court, but when they came off the court all the other teams in the tournament were cheering for them, treating them like they had won the tournament... Now, our kids are the show, I must admit...The other teams loved our boys. Within like 5 minutes our kids were all smiles again, joking and laughing with the other teams, acting like winners."
Mitchell's accomplishments are impossible to quantify, but that doesn't mean they go unnoticed. His co-workers certainly acknowledge and appreciate his wonderful success with the kids.
"These kids live in a crazy society without the opportunities to succeed," says Damone Hale, director of legal services and violence prevention services for the Bayview Hunters Point Foundation and president of the Mayor's Juvenile Probation Commission, "One thing that I've always seen is that with opportunity comes success, and Fulton provides the kids of this community with an opportunity."
Hale pointed out the story of Dante Sawyer, a promising basketball player at McAteer High School who Mitchell has known since he was in eighth grade. Sawyer, who was at one point a nationally recognized talent, flunked out of school his senior year. Of course, with his high school diploma incomplete his dreams of making it as a Division 1 college basketball star vanished. That is, until Mitchell convinced Sawyer to make one last trip to Hawaii to play for the many scouts in attendance.
With Mitchell's help and guidance, Sawyer found a scholarship to College of Southern Idaho provided he passed his exams. After just a month of catching up, Sawyer passed his high school equivalency exam and became eligible to play basketball and follow his dream.
Just this last weekend Mitchell and Hale made the 13-hour drive from San Francisco to Seattle to watch Sawyer play. He scored 27 points in his game, and is doing well for himself at school.
After the game Mitchell took Sawyer out and bought him some new shoes and slipped a couple of bucks into his pocket for walking around money.
"I've done everything for these kids but actually have them live with me," says Mitchell. "I've gotten them food when they needed something to eat, I've given them a couple of bucks when they needed a couple of bucks, I've let them sleep at my place when they've needed places to spend a night."
"Fulton always finds a place for the kids, he doesn't ever turn them away," says Hale. "Fulton provides for these kids like nobody else does, he takes care of them, he gives them a sense of pride."