After dark days, players light up the competition

Community support is key as West Medford league adds to 40-plus years of history

Summer league players square off at West Medford's Dugger Park, along the Mystic River. (Jim Davis/Globe Staff)

Spectators straddle bikes aside the court, sit in lawn chairs, bring toddlers in strollers, and walk dogs along the grass next to the Mystic River. It's just another summer night on the court for the West Medford basketball league, and the community is following the action.

The eight-team league, featuring players ranging in age from 17 to 45, continues to operate under the lights despite experiencing a few dark periods during its 40-plus-year history. The competition varies from year to year, occasionally attracting premier talent from the neighborhood, including former University of Massachusetts at Amherst star Anthony Anderson.

Regardless of the talent, the community remains the constant force bringing basketball back under the lights. This summer, the league tapped off in early July, with games played on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

On Tuesday night, "The Bridge" from Cambridge, the defending league champion, and the Medford Police Patrolmen's Association team squared off in the first game of the best-of-three championship series.

"It's something to do," says Reggie Graham, who oversees the league along with Sammy Newman-Beck, an Emerson College student, and Trent Headley, a Malden police officer. "After 8 o'clock at night, there's nothing [else]," he said.

Until the early 1970s, players from other leagues in Medford did not venture over to Dugger Park, the first public park to be named in honor of an African-American - World War I soldier Edward Dugger - in the Boston suburbs. Players thought the home-court advantage at Dugger was too big an obstacle.

"We live on the other side of the tracks," said a smiling Graham, who played ball at Medford and later Tufts University and has been affiliated with the league since age 16.

The league existed in "starts and fits" according to the 56-year-old Graham, but reached a low point in the late 1990s, when the league disintegrated and players left for other leagues.

Walking off the court after a first-round playoff elimination earlier this month, ArMetrus Mann was all smiles. "It should hurt, but it really doesn't hurt," he said. Playing at Dugger carries an additional bit of satisfaction for Mann this summer.

In May, he was released from the Old Colony Correctional Center, a medium-security facility in Bridgewater after serving two years for cocaine trafficking related to an arrest in 2000.

Mann, who arrived in Medford from Denver at age 12, walked down to Dugger as a teen, waiting for the day when he would be old enough to play in the league. But when he came of age, the league was falling apart. The area changed and drugs were becoming a problem for Mann and others in the area.

In 1999, the 24-year-old Mann was at a crossroads. "I was making a decision on what I wanted to do with myself," he said. "I decided I would try to help as many youths as possible. I couldn't mentor them and live that lifestyle I was living."

He mentored Brandon S. Galloway-Bolden, a talented Medford High basketball and football player. Mann tried to help Bolden through his personal problems by trying to "keep him grounded," Mann said. "I just didn't want him to go astray."

In July of 2000, the 16-year-old Bolden collapsed and died on a Malden basketball court of a heart ailment; it was a tragic event that galvanized the community. "That was devastating for everybody out here," Mann said. "That acted as a catalyst for me to get moving and to bring everybody together and show some love."

Mann organized a memorial gathering at Dugger at which Reggie Lewis's widow, Donna Harris-Lewis, was among several speakers, then focused his efforts on bringing back the league.

He called every player he knew, fixed up the park, and brought the league back. In 2002, Shawn Polk, the women's basketball coach at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, helped Mann order equipment and league shirts, imprinted with the initials "BB" for Bolden, and find licensed referees. If a team couldn't pay the league fees, Mann paid out of his own pocket.

He ran the league from 2000 until 2005, when he was convicted. "It's over and done with," he said of his time spent behind bars "That's what happened. I don't hide it."

Minus his direction, Dugger was quiet in the summer of 2006.

Newman-Beck knew he had to try to bring basketball back. "It was kind of depressing," he said. "You'd drive by on a night like this and [the park] would be empty."

With Newman-Beck, Headley, and Graham spearheading the effort, the league returned last summer and now the trio hopes to take it to greater heights. Getting new lights for the park is a top priority. "Out of all the parks in Medford, we're the only park that has street lights on our court," Newman-Beck said.

"We're always aiming to get more college guys in the league, but the talent level is pretty good for a summer league."

Graham is mum about exact plans for the league in the future, but says a "rather ambitious plan" is in place, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous contributor. Newman-Beck doesn't know if he'll be back running the league next year - he is scheduled to graduate in June - but Mann is enthusiastic about getting involved again, and he has the support of the others.