Veritas, Vol. 38, No. 03, November 1995

              Hurricane athletes and Metro-Dade police officers tell youngsters: Make positive decisions and “Join a team, not a gang”
Team work: Running back Danyell Ferguson and Metro-Dade Police Officer John Galardi encourage Blue Lakes Elementary School fifth-graders Luis Artola (left) and Lucas DeDominicis to avoid gang involvement.
Hurricanes running back
Danyell Ferguson takes a philosophical tone with his specially assembled audience of fiffh-and sixth-graders, for he is there to deliver a message: Be serious about school and make the right choices.
“If my football career were to end tomorrow,” he tells the awestruck students, “they could never take my education away from me.”
Getting up close and personal with Danyell Feiguson is one of the perks in the Join a Team, Not a Gang program offered by the Metro-Dade Police Department, with cooperation from UM’s athletic department and Florida Power & Light Company. The program was designed to prevent elementary school children from falling prey to gangs in their middle school years.
“I tell them one bad decision could alter your whole life,” says Ferguson.
For two years the star running back has participated in the program, all the while preaching discipline and patience to the students. “Everything will come to you in time,” he tells them, “if you just follow the rules and do the right thing.”
Throughout the year, more children get similar encouragement from a group of standout Hurricane baseball and basketball players and cheerleaders. Some get to attend home football games at the Orange Bowl, where they meet the players for a post-game locker room recap.
“These kids could never have imagined themselves being so close to the action,” says Robert Agramonte, a
sports marketing coordinator, who helps facilitate the program.
The rewards are the culmination of a program that begins in the class-
room, where Metro-Dade police officers deliver the hard truth and dispel any glamour surrounding gang activity. “We give information and encourage-
ment before they actually need it,” says Keith Green, the program’s cofounder. “This is not rehabilitation; this is prevention.”
Green, a former gang investigator in the Kendall district, together with retired baseball coach Ron Fraser, began an early form of the project in 1987. Since then the award-winning program has expanded to include every district in Dade County and every major team sport at UM.
“These kids look up to the players,” says Green. They also learn that the players once faced similar challenges of growing up. “They made positive decisions,” Green tells the children, “that we hope you will make.”
Adds Agramonte, “The players let them know they are here to be students and get a degree.” Danyell Ferguson hardly even mentions football.
“I talk about what it takes to be successful,” he says.
The program points the way for children to take up a variety of school activities designed to promote a sense of belonging.
“We found that kids were joining gangs for the same reason that other kids join teams,” says Green. “For social reasons—the need to affiliate and command power and respect.
They described the gangs as families. Of course, the consequences are a lot different.
“Arresting the kids was getting us nowhere,” he adds. “To try to get kids not to get involved is a much better way to go.”
—Leslie Sternlieb
United Way: The real goal is to do something to help our neighbors
Aiming for $480,000 in pledges, organizers said at the recent United Way kickoff breakfast that the more important goal underlying the 1995 University of Miami campaign is to address the human concerns that drive the agency.
“I read a story about a child abuse and neglect case in the paper this morning. It made me want to cry, ” President Edward T. Foote II noted in his opening remarks. “But then I thought, you either cry or you do something to make it better. United Way is how we do that."
This year's campaign chair, Vice President and Treasurer Diane Cook, hopes to build on the momentum that
last year placed UM first among private universities for giving, on a per capita basis.
It's not just the giving spirit that adds power to the UM effort, it’s also the teamwork and creative special events that inspire the University community to achieve success.
As well as have some fun. If you missed the slate of
Joe Lacher, chairman of the 1995 campaign and president of Southern Bell of Florida (left) is joined by President Edward T. Foote II; Vice President and Treasurer Diane Cook, this year’s University campaign chair; along with Julia Cope (far right), executive director of the Florida Foster Care Review Project.
activities happening earlier in the fall, there is more to come. The first UM tennis tournament to benefit United Way takes place November 11. Jointly sponored by the Employee Benefits office, Campus Sports and Recreation, and the Athletics Department, the day features a kids clinic, round robin doubles, and V.I.P. rounds. Taking place at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center, the event will be brimming with gifts, food, and awards to the top finishers. For more information, please contact Matt Stein at 243-3788.