Brockton's Community Spirit Shines at High School Basketball Game
Brockton High School basketball star lives in shelter but holds tight to dreams.
BROCKTON, Mass., March 11, 2009— -- As part of our series "The Kitchen Table," "World News" will spend considerable time in the coming months in Brockton, Mass., to get a firsthand look at how the city is coping with the recession and preparing for the challenges ahead.
After an undefeated season, the Brockton High Boxers earned a spot in the state basketball semi-finals at the Boston Garden -- the same court that the reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics call home. But for hundreds of students at Brockton High, there was one thing standing in the way of seeing that moment -- $8.
Most of the students couldn't afford an $8 ticket to the game.
"It's been a challenging year for us," said Brockton High School principal Sue Szachowicz. "We have registered a lot of new students at Brockton High who are homeless."
To say times are tough in Brockton would be a great understatement. The city's crime rate is 1.5 times the national average, and budget cuts have been proposed to slash the already thin police force in half.
Once a manufacturing town, Brockton will see the last of its 39 shoe factories shut down this month, in a city where unemployment is already at 10 percent. More than 500 families have lost their homes and many more are struggling to make ends meet.
That's when Szachowicz stepped in. She organized teachers, staff and parents to scrape together their own money to buy 80 tickets to the big game and raffle them off to needy students.
The community gathered last night to watch the Boxers play at the Garden. The night marked a chance to finish a perfect season on top.
But for 18-year-old Rondell Best, the team's senior forward, the night was far more than a childhood dream.
"I saw Michael Jordan play here, Paul Pierce play here, Larry [Bird] play here. This is a huge, extreme dream ... and I am very, um, very honored just to be here," he said. "When you have nothing, you have to have something to hope for."
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