Hoop Dreams: Is sport a viable passport out of poverty?

A main difference between West Garfield  (WG) and St. Joseph’s (ST’s) is that the socioeconomic status is highly contrasted, with West Garfield being a predominantly black school and SJ’s being a school of mixed race, with a lot of white kids there. The WG neighborhood had a heavy influence of poorer people that couldn’t afford much and focused their time on buying or selling drugs, while SJ’s had people that were not only able to pay for the private school they went to, but have nice things as well. While it was great that both William and Arthur had the opportunity to attend SJ’s, they did not end up with similar outcomes from being given the opportunity. William went farther than he would have at WG, at the expense of his athletic health after injuring his knee repetitively and only after the owner of Encyclopedia Britannica paid for his tuition; Arthur was looked at as expendable. Because he couldn’t make the money for his schooling, Arthur was sent back to the other school in the less fortunate area while living with a fatherless family in a sometimes electricity-free house because his mom had lost her disability and they could no longer afford the extras that most people look at as having a right to and not as a privilege. 

While basketball was each of the boys’ entire lives and that was a good motivation for each of them, they were looked at as tokens for their family and almost set up to only be basketball players. Grades were an important factor in the beginning but with the divide in surrounding socioeconomic status, Arthur was looked at solely for basketball (especially by his father) and William was struggling with juggling being a father, an injured basketball player, and a student.

I don’t think that my view of the idea of sports being a “passport to poverty” has changed. While it’s a great concept, it seldom works out for multiple people in one area. It isn’t always a good thing to those that come across the fortune either, especially when people start coming out of the woodworks. So the people that don’t encounter it can actually be just as unfortunate or more fortunate than those that do make it big playing a skilled sport from a young age as far as relationships go.