Full Court Peace: Mike Evans

When Michael Evans, Ed.M.’11, was an eighth grader in Weston, Conn., his parents encouraged him to join a basketball team on which he was the only white player. “I wanted to do it, but I was scared because they were such good players and didn’t think I was on their level,” he says.

He would go on to play with this team for four years and, along the way, his relationships with his fellow players opened his eyes to some of life’s harsh realities. “At 16, I was the only one who could drive to practice and everyone else took the bus,” he recalled. “These guys had never been in a hotel before and some shared stories of not even knowing whether the electricity would be on in their homes. It just didn’t make sense to me.”

What Evans couldn’t foresee, at the time, was that this experience laid the foundation for Full Court Peace, a nonprofit organization he created that uses basketball as a means to unite at-risk youth from different communities.

In 2006, following graduation from Hamilton College, Evans got offered a chance to play basketball professionally in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Once he arrived, he quickly realized that basketball in Belfast was very different from back home. Evans was caught in a rioting community where Catholics and Protestants were pitted against each other.

Eager to make a difference and find out more, he started working with local organizations using basketball to bring youth together. He began coaching and struggled to get kids from opposite sides of the fence playing together. Many of the players admitted to feeling disloyal and betraying their communities by joining a mixed team.

Evans pondered how to accomplish his goal of using basketball to build camaraderie between these two groups. Within a year, he had traveled back to the United States, raised funds from local church congregations, met with key leaders in Belfast, and developed the idea for Full Court Peace. He returned to those same kids – promising a trip to the United States – if they would play basketball on a team together. They agreed.

And, so, it began. For the first month of practice, Evans admits the kids begrudgingly played together, never speaking on or off the court. However, once they began playing games, Evans noticed that slowly friendships developed. Despite their backgrounds, Evans watched as their relations blossomed and kids who would once not say a word, now talked, texted, and posed for photographs together. In 2009, Evans turned Full Court Peace’s Belfast program  over to local control.

Yet, he still felt like he had work left to do.  “I really felt like I could change something and like there was a better answer,” he said. He began exploring other areas where he could use basketball to build community and as a social tool traveling to Havana, Cuba, and Juarez, Mexico.

Having used basketball or sports diplomacy successfully in three different countries, Evans – still unsure about what to do with his life despite being interested in setting up Full Court Peace globally – decided to apply to graduate school programs in writing, international relations, and education leadership. He ultimately decided to attend the Ed School under the Special Studies Program. “The Ed School made me realize that education is a Civil Rights issue of our time,” he said. “And where is education at its worse? Inner cities – where the response to basketball is great.”

During his time at HGSE, he worked on developing a model using basketball to incentivize and enhance education, as well as to build social capital. He looked no further then his own playing grounds in Connecticut to develop a Full Court Peace program that he plans to launch this fall. In fact, this new branch of the program will focus on reverse mentoring as part of an afterschool program where at-risk high school students act as mentees and coach middle school students. The program will not only contain basketball games, but also an academic component. Bringing in tutors from local universities, each of the 50 students will receive academic help. Additionally, students will also have opportunities to lead the team and travel. Finally, this integrated team of players will go abroad to countries like Cuba and Northern Ireland to fix up courts, educate youth, and play basketball with local kids.

“Basketball is marketable. You can have a team [that] set goals, and individuals can also set goals,” he said.

Evans points out that basketball allows kids to build networks, which, he hopes, will allow some urban players to meet people who have graduated from high school and achieved other goals they may have thought were unattainable.

While Evans has already written a book about his experience, and even sold the movie rights to his story, he hopes that Full Court Peace will become a nationally recognized organization and that each year the program will grow.

“I think this model can work to solve a lot of problems, in a lot of places,” he said. “Being part of a Full Court Peace team means you are committed to academic excellence, great sportsmanship, and addicted to your teammates.”