Game changer

Can youth football save a struggling neighborhood?

Story by Christina Hughes Babb | Photos by James Coreas

A few weeks ago, vague reports surfaced about the fatal shooting of a Hamilton Park man. Violent crimes in Hamilton Park don’t typically make front-page news; several are reported each year.

But the slaying of Gregory Callahan struck a nerve in the community. Callahan, a Lake Highlands High School graduate, was an integral part of the neighborhood. He was one of 12 coaches of the Hamilton Park Bobcats youth football team. A father and husband, he and his wife took nightly walks around the neighborhood, say friends — he had a lot of them and a few friendly rivals.

Losing Coach Greg was like losing a father to some Hamilton Park children, says Bobcats coach and president Tevar Watson.

“A lot of these boys, their fathers and big brothers are out of the picture, sometimes in prison. Greg played a large role in these kids’ lives. And our kids go through so much. The loss is massive,” Watson says.

Both Watson and Rasheed Aziz — coach of a rival Hamilton Park youth football organization called Legacy — spend most weekday nights working with little leaguers. But they took off the Tuesday following Callahan’s death to speak at a town hall meeting at Ham- ilton Park’s Willie B. Johnson Recreation Center. A flier posted at Forest Lane and Schroeder advertised a discussion about “making Hamilton Park a safer, healthier community” but the assembly was in response to the Callahan murder, for which a neighborhood juvenile was arrested.

At the meeting, coaches Watson and Aziz sit side-by-side, though they are adversaries — Aziz broke from the Bobcats years ago to form Legacy. Affiliates of the respective teams compete not only for wins but also for resources in a financially wanting environment.

But as they separately take the podium and address about 200 neighbors and a few city officials, it’s clear they share similar feelings.

Both are angry about what happened to Callahan. And both blame themselves and the community for allowing violence to permeate the neighborhood.

“We let the neighborhood become the ’hood,” Aziz says. “We take the neighbor out of the neighborhood. We sat back and allowed this to happen.”

Both grew up in Hamilton Park and have watched crime increase over the years, and they agree a change for the better must start with the youth.

“I am talking about kids under 15,” Watson says. “Over 15, they have their minds made up. We have to reach the young.”

And both believe in the healing power of sports, so much so that each dedicates a large portion of his life to youth football, which each believes is a key component in repairing this hurting neighborhood.

Hamilton Park is located southeast of the Central Expressway/I-635 interchange, north of Forest Lane. Sections of Hamilton Park feed into Lake Highlands High School. Hamilton Park Elementary School, a Richardson ISD magnet school, serves students from Lake Highlands and other RISD neighborhoods.

The Hamilton Park subdivision was designed in 1974 as a black neighborhood with an elementary, junior high and high school, former District 10 Councilman Alan Walne said in a past Advocate interview. But the high school was shuttered as part of the desegregation effort in the 1970s.

“In my opinion, when they split them up, it was one of the worst things that could hap-