Team of Dreams: Portland Mayor Charlie Hales explains why East African All Stars moved him

Mayor Charlie Hales and his wife Nancy posed for photos with the East African All Stars during a December tournament. Casey Parks/The Oregonian

By Casey Parks
Tuesday, April 28, 2015

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Mayor Charlie Hales was taken by the Somali teenagers as soon as he met them last summer.

The East African All Stars had ironed their button-down shirts and spoke of themselves as a family. They told the mayor they wanted to stay out of the trouble that dogged their neighborhoods. But they needed his help.

Hales talked Nike into giving the team uniforms. And in the nine months since Hales first met the young men, he has made the East African All Stars the face of his effort to involve immigrants and young people more often in city policy.

A photo of the team topped Hales' end of the year accomplishments newsletter. The mayor gave them seats at his staff's table during the annual state of the city speech. He shares Facebook posts chronicling their progress.

Hales spoke with The Oregonian about meeting the East African All Stars at an Iftar dinner last summer and about how getting "upstream" in a kid's life can make a difference. His thoughts have been edited and condensed for length.

He met the boys at a Ramadan meal last July.

"These young men were there to explain that they were organizing themselves as a basketball team. I was pretty moved by just meeting them. Here are a bunch of really earnest young men who are both trying to understand the new world they live in here in the U.S. and get organized as a group and do what all young, testosterone-infused young men should do: get out there and get active. As the dad of sons, I know how powerful that drug called testosterone is. If they can get out on the basketball court or soccer field or anywhere else and burn that off in a positive way, then everyone wins. I was taken by that."

Why he got involved

"There is constant bad news. Recently, there were three young African-American men involved in a string of armed robberies. They're now in custody. Ack. In East Portland. Ack. There are negative stereotypes reinforced by actual events that have to be overcome.

"There are also positive examples that need to get celebrated. So how do we use the resources we have quickly to provide more positive opportunities for these kids? Obviously on a human scale, that's the right thing to do. If all you care about is the money, it's the right thing to do, when you look at the pennies we spend on youth basketball league compared to the dollars, hundreds of thousands of them, we spend on somebody in the criminal justice."

What his office did to help

"(The East African All Stars) were having some trouble finding some practice space, so Antoinette Edwards in our office helped them find space. When this tournament came along, Antoinette heard that they needed jerseys and shorts to look like a team. I heard that request and said, 'Let me go to work on that.' That seems like something a mayor ought to be able to throw his weight around about.

He called Nike and asked for help

"Literally two days later, all these boxes showed up in our office.

"We can't necessarily do that every time for everyone, but when there are moments like that, when we as a community can connect the dots and help young people that are doing positive things, we ought to always try to make it happen.

"We have lots of other cultures in Portland now compared to the traditional North American white culture that was predominate when I moved here. Part of my job is to deliberately try to understand the variety of cultures we have in this city and then look for ways for those new Portlanders to get engaged in their city.

Hales saved members of the East African All Stars a seat at his table during the state of the city speech. Sara Hottman / City of Portland

What's the risk?

"We had this conference called the What Works Conference. We had Robert Anda who is one of the coauthors of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, which is this massive research project that shows that ...the incidents of adverse childhood experiences -- violence, mom and dad with drug addiction, mom and dad with mental health problems, divorce -- kids with zero or one adverse childhood experiences don't show a lot of variation from the mean.

"When kids have three, four, five and six adverse childhood experiences, there's an exponential change in their likelihood to experience school discipline, to fall behind academically, to end up in the criminal justice system, to use drugs or alcohol or have mental or physical health problems.

"If you get upstream in that young person's life, and they have fewer adverse childhood experiences and they have a good education and they have recreational opportunities and they have a supportive social structure ... if more kids have that childhood, and less kids have multiple adverse childhood experiences, then everybody once again wins.

"For those of us who are privileged, who don't have to overcome those barriers, it's important to think back, 'Oh yeah, I did some dumb stuff in high school. I got in trouble a few times.' But people cut me a break and gave me the opportunity to do it right. I didn't get expelled from school disproportionately to the other kids. I had a supportive family structure and a community structure around me. I spoke the language. My parents were in the middle class.

"What kind of hill do these guys have to climb? Maybe somebody should try to give them a break or two, a lift or two as they do that.

"The E.A. All Stars are a great example of the young people in Portland. They are an example, but there are thousands of other kids who could use more opportunity, could use access to a great education, access to summer jobs and employment when they finish their education, who deserve access to an affordable college if they want to go to college.

"You can't always predict what that hook will be and how it pulls them into a better future, but this little basketball team is one example of how it might make a big difference. Twenty years from now, some of those young men will be telling their stories."

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