The Howard Moore Foundation Basketball Camp at Middleton High School: Passing On Expertise and Wisdom (Part 2 of 2)
Rashard Griffin, former Badger basketball professional basketball great, John Milton, MSC at La Follette High School and Jason “The Jet” Terry, currently Utah Jazz assistant basketball coach, former NBA player. Terry won a high school state tiltle, a national NCAA championship with Arikzona and NBA championship with the Dallas Mavericks. He also won the 6th Man of the Year Award in the NBA.
by Jonathan Gramling
For John Milton, the multicultural services coordinator at La Follette High School, being involved in summer basketball camps is about giving back. Milton became who he is today through the support that he had growing up in Milwaukee’s Black community. And now through the Howard Moore Foundation, Milton — along with greats like Rashard Griffith, Robert Hackett and Jason Terry — gives back through basketball camps at Middleton High School and Chicago.
For all of the basketball players giving instruction in the camp, it’s about giving back to the community and keeping Howard Moore’s spirit and concern for young people alive in the community.
For Rashard Griffith — who is now the student engagement coordinator at Hamilton Middle School — it’s all about giving back. Griffith cut his teeth in the Ida B. Wells projects in Chicago
“It’s not about me,” Griffith emphasized. “I am trying to get them to understand about the opportunity that they have before them. They don’t even understand that they have Robert Hackett, the guy who came up with the idea on how to do the WNBA Combine, right here in person in the gym with them. They don’t understand the people whom they have in the gym with them who have been through some of the stuff that they are going to go through. They can talk to them and try to help them to achieve their goals. We can’t take it with us. So that’s how we give back, Chicago yesterday, here back at home today and tomorrow and Sunday do a barbecue and then rest to get ready for an entire school year again.”
It’s also about Howard Moore, the former UW basketball who lost is wife and daughter — and was severely injured — in a car accident. These players are dedicated to Moore.
“I take care of my brother Howard,” Griffith said. “I’m a part of his care team. I helping to raise his son with his grandmother and grandfather. I’m trying to do my part to do a good job so that when I’m gone and my day comes, I’m remembered just as the basketball player, but for the person that I am.
For John Milton, the multicultural services coordinator at La Follette High and former basketball standout, it’s all about the kids.
“I used to be a good guy on the basketball court,” Milton recalled. “All of my old trophies and medals, I threw out because I have memories. To be able to give whatever little knowledge that I have or whatever connection I have, in the words of Bob Steele who passed away, a former lawyer at Oscar Mayer, ‘Don’t tell me about the trick. Just pull the damn rabbit out of the hat.’ If I can pull the rabbit out of the hat for these kids and make their day, that’s what it is about. I miss Bob.”
While Milton didn’t go as far in his basketball career as the others, in some ways, he is their peer because for all of them, it is about the kids.
“What people fail to see is if you have a player like Jason Terry and fast forward to today, LeBron James,” Milton said. “That person with just the stroke of a pen can solve all of the family problems. That’s great. But now at the stroke of that pen, you are the lead bread winner. And everybody under the sun is going to come to you for support, come to you for some type of favor or some type of business deal. I’ve been doing this with Devin since 2008. And people say, ‘Hey, I want to partner with Devin Harris. I want to partner with Jason Terry and Wes Matthews.’ But for me, I know how to stay in my lane. I interact with these guys just like I interact with my friends. I know they have higher status. But they want me to use that status to give back. But I’m not going to do anything to benefit me. I have my own character. Thus they allow me into their circle.”
What is important is building that sense of community and working with the ytoung people because it is a part of your life and not just a job.
“When I went to E.F. Phillips School in Milwaukee and then got bused over, I had a Black teacher by the name of Ms. Velma Bradford,” Milton recalled. “She had a burn mark over her eye. We’re going back to 1975. We had her as a new teacher at Phillips. She oversaw the SAP Program, Superior Ability Program. We were the smart, nerds of the classroom. She challenged us. She said, ‘You are the smartest kids in the building. I’m going to challenge you to use your brains. When we are on the playground back in the day playing with our basketball, the bigger kids would come and take our ball. We said, ‘Ms. Bradford, they came and took our ball.’ She said, ‘Out think them.’ This is a true story. We used to go out and play jacks or hopscotch and act like it was the World Series. We were having fun throwing rocks and jumping around. And then those kids came and took our rocks. And we took our basketball back. We out thought them. But she from 6th grade until I graduated from college, she always took us out for lunch. She always spent time. And that is what is needed in our community.”
For Milton, it’s not about trophies. It’s about the impact that you have on the students’ lives.
“I have former students who call me,” Milton said. “‘Hey Mr. Milton, I’m back in town for Christmas. I want to take you to lunch.’ You know you’ve done something right if they want to spend 30-60 minutes with you.”
For Milton, it is building that sense of community that is so important for young people to succeed.
“What’s happening right now is everyone is busy,” Milton said. “Everyone is looking at social media. But back in the day, if I lived next to you and you lived next to Charles, I would be, ‘Hey, I’m going out of town next week, can you look after my house?’ Now we don’t even talk with one another. Working at LaFollette, I’m trying to build a strong multicultural parent group with Latinx, Asian, Hmong and Black and just sit down and break bread. And ask, ‘How can we develop your kids? How can we prepare your kids for the future?’ I have a BSU Leadership Team, one male and six female. They want to go out in the community and host presentations with people on banking, housing or whatever. Any organization looking to host or allow my students to come and present what our BSU does, hit my line. I’m at LaFollette every day, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.”
Rashard Griffith, John Milton and Jason Terry learned long ago that there is no I in team. And for them, gikving back is a continuation of that team spirit. It’s important for everyone to succeed as a team, to succeed as a community. Howard Moore would want nothing less.