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For more information call 214.560.4203 or email jliles@advocatemag.com pen to them,” Walne said. “The buses drove up and started taking them off to Lake Highlands High School — they said ‘we’re going to split you all up’ — which is unfortunate because, you talk about a sense of community, they had it.”

The change, he said, began to tear at the tight community bonds.

Another former District 10 Councilman, Bill Blaydes, has said that the neighborhood experienced changes over the years that led to problems.

“Families and professionals lived in the original Hamilton Park, raised their children, and when the children grew up, they moved away to other parts of Dallas in many cases ... but today you have a neighborhood in which the seniors are dying, the children are spread out, and now the majority of Hamilton Park is for lease … which equals less sense of ownership and pride in the neighborhood.”

At the time of integration, there were a couple of little league football teams in Hamilton Park. Many years ago, Watson says, the various teams merged into one, the Bobcats, which is also the Hamilton Park school mascot.

Little league football provided a distraction for youngsters tempted by examples of deviancy in a disenfranchised neighborhood and a skill to keep them motivated through high school and college, Watson says. Plus, he adds, “When I was a kid going down the wrong path, football saved my life.”

Until about four years ago, when Aziz started Legacy, the Bobcats were the only Hamilton Park team. Aziz has been an organizer since his high school days, he says, when he started a Richardson ISD chapter of BASU (Brothers and Sisters United), an African American advocacy organization. He says students from Hillcrest, Richardson, Berkner and Lake Highlands high schools attended the meetings. “It was a big deal then,” he says. He’d been on a bad path until a girl and the movie Malcolm X made him want to do better.

“The girl, she cared about my grades and was going to cut me loose because I didn’t. I promised her I’d do better, and I did,” he says.

Where: Merriman Park Elementary

When: Saturday, September 13 10:00 am - Noon

More info: lhaecpta.org

“As for Malcolm X, I saw he was a bad guy who turned around and did something good. That motivated me. I learned that you could be cool by doing good things.”

Aziz’s father, who he says was in and out of jail all his life, was murdered. A few years ago, his aunt was gunned down by her estranged lover in a Greenville Avenue church parking lot. “I’ve seen death. I was bitter as a kid. I was mad at the world, mad at my dad. I was out here doing dumb stuff. Then one day, thank God, someone told me I was great it changed everything.”

Aziz does not know or share many details about the juvenile arrested for the Callahan murder (at time of publication, Dallas Police had not filled an open-records request for incident reports and 911 calls). Aziz says he knows the accused, who he says is a Hamilton Park teen whose family has a troubled reputation. “They almost seem cursed — this is a family whose name always comes up — generation after generation. In a way I want to reach out to them and help them. It has to suck being a kid from a family like this, knowing the reality is — you’re probably not going to make it.”

The Legacy Youth Sports organization will provide positive alternatives — to involvement in gangs or drugs, for example — for kids caught in negative cycles, Aziz says. Legacy is now a subcommittee of the nonprofit Hamilton Park Historic Preservation Foundation, and Aziz’s plans for the organization are ambitious. He says he hopes to broaden the reach of youth activities for ailing neighborhoods. The program, which is open to youth from Dallas and Richardson, offers football, cheerleading, track and basketball. Unlike the Bobcats, Legacy is not rooted in a specific religion (part of the Bobcats’ mission is to “bring the kids to Christ,” Watson says). Aziz says he wants Legacy kids from different cultural or religious backgrounds to feel comfortable. “I’m not one to force religion on people,” he says. He eventually hopes to include non-sports activities — the arts, he says, and educational branches.

“Honestly, this is bigger than football,” Aziz says. Indeed, the Hamilton Park teams each yearn to beat the other on the football field, but mentorship and the provision of positive choices are fundamental goals shared by the coaches.

“We [the two football teams] are competing,” Aziz says, “but we are competing for good things for our kids. That is not bad.”

Hamilton Park benefits from having a distinct identity and, despite its problems, a heightened sense of pride compared with Lake Highlands’ other high-crime areas, such as high-density apartment communities. Blaydes says the neighborhood’s park and recreation center located along the White Rock Trail is a “true jewel” and “very much a part of the fabric of Lake Highlands.”

Nowhere is the neighborhood’s potential more evident than at a scrimmage between the Bobcats and Legacy, which took place a few nights after the town hall meeting.

Hundreds of people swarm Hamilton Park Elementary School’s athletic field — multiple football scrimmages are in progress. Coaches are bellowing. Moms are selling concessions. Little girls on a cheer squad are chanting. The playground is teeming with tots. Kids too young or too old for little league have their own games underway. At first blush, it looks like an ultra-positive community gathering.

But the event belies some of the neighborhood’s heartache. For one, Coach Greg’s boisterous voice is missing.

“Everything has changed,” Watson says. “He was the mouth you would hear. The other coaches are out there yelling, but to us, there is a great silence.”

Aziz says it is beautiful that both teams are here together, providing a step toward strengthening the community.

“It took a lot of hard work to get this to- gether. This is the first time we’ve all been together. This is what it’s all about,” he says, adding that, “This is the kind of thing Greg would have wanted to see.”

Unfortunately, Watson says, the turnout that night isn’t typical.

“Yes, everyone wants to see the Bobcats play Legacy,” he says. But in general, turnout to family-friendly events in the neighborhood is low. “When there is a block party … with drinking and smoking, there are a thousand people there. When we have family day