Group Lugs Basketball Hoop Around Philadelphia to Help Break Tension
Here’s a positive story on a Wednesday morning.
As the the unrest continues in Philadelphia, a group of basketball players carried a hoop through Center City and set up impromptu shootarounds to help ease the anxiety and hostility.
Good thread from WHYY reporter Nina Feldman:
They convinced a cop to play – his colleagues had to remind him to put his gun away before he took some shots. A couple others yelled for him to stop. pic.twitter.com/TC3dqYRDP6
— Nina Feldman (@ncannellf) June 2, 2020
To all Khalil’s fans, the mastermind behind this project is Stephania Ergemlidze. I watched her school dude after dude one-on-one. Sorry I am just now giving her credit where credit’s due, just got home after a long one out there. pic.twitter.com/XLZomQupid
— Nina Feldman (@ncannellf) June 3, 2020
Stephania is a Youtuber with 71,000 followers.
The irony here is that basketball hoops have been removed from playgrounds throughout Philly due to the COVID pandemic, so you couldn’t play even if you wanted to. The rec centers are still gated and locked down, which is going on three months now.
No doubt that’s contributing to the unrest and tension in the city, because we’ve all been cooped up in our houses and apartments for 12 weeks now without being able to get out and play sports. The only real option is to find one of the non-gated parks (like Penn Treaty) to do something with a small group or use the biking/jogging path.
