- Staff Writer
Tags: tarheel
DURHAM -- .
As retirees and college students quietly coach several young men and women through high school equivalency practice tests at the John Avery Boys and Girls Club, Malcom Reed pulls up a message on his new Facebook page.
As retirees and college students quietly coach several young men and women through high school equivalency practice tests at the John Avery Boys and Girls Club, Malcom Reed pulls up a message on his new Facebook page.
A young man is asking for help.
"Wassup," the message says. " I was tryna c if u culd help me out. im tryna get bak in basketball shape and get in to a school."
Reed, the 30-year-old founder of the D3 Community Outreach mentoring program in Durham, is slowly building a reputation as a man who can and will help "knuckleheaded" youth turn their lives around. The author of the Facebook message found Reed through a friend who had just gotten into junior college in upstate New York.
Reed, a former college basketball player who made a few knuckleheaded moves of his own in his teen years, knows what it's like to need someone in times of trouble. And as a nod to the mentors who guided him to a better way of life, Reed gives his time, energy and money freely to young men who truly are committed to change.
He helps them study for GED tests and lines up volunteers to coach them in subjects beyond his expertise. He shuttles students to and from testing sites. He takes them on college tours, helps a few select students out with rent, tuition and books, and brags about their accomplishments as if they were his own children.
"For a young person to take the time and contact you," Reed says, "how do you turn your back?"
Reed was born in South Carolina but spent most of his childhood in a small community outside Ocean City, N.J. Things were tough. He never met his father and for years thought of his oldest brother as the man of the house. But when that brother, four years his senior, moved out on his own, Reed started having difficulties at home.
When he was 14, he came home one day to find his mother at the door with a knife, telling him he wasn't coming inside anymore. All his clothes, shoes, a radio and other possessions were outside in two garbage bags.
For two weeks, Reed was homeless. He slept near a trash can and did not go to school.
Then a man who owned an efficiency motel allowed him to stay on the property if he would do handyman work around the place. Reed, though, continued his spiral downward. Though he played basketball his freshman year of high school, he became ineligible his sophomore year, the year he got in trouble with the law for armed robbery and stealing a car.
Judge intervenes
Those legal troubles landed Reed in a Cape May County, N.J., courtroom, where a judge forced him to change his lifestyle. Not only did the judge, a tall, imposing man, send Reed off to a juvenile offender boot camp at a Cape May Coast Guard post, he also insisted that Reed keep up his grades, play high school basketball and return to his courtroom several times a month for a status update.
That judge, Reed says, even showed up at one of his high school basketball games. "It was a bit of excitement," Reed recalled. "It was like someone was checking up on me."
That nurturing experience, and his positive relationship with the high school basketball coach and an English teacher who challenged him to do better, led Reed to Ocean County College for two years of community college. More important, his experience in Toms River, N.J., led to the first of three post high school degrees that he cherishes today.
After two years in Toms River, Reed transferred to the Institute of Technology at West Virginia University to play for the Golden Bears. Those experiences afforded him an opportunity to try out for the Philadelphia 76ers, though he didn't make the team, and for brief professional stints with the Harlem Globetrotters and teams in France and Germany.
Though sports opened doors, Reed thought it was important to focus on books, too. He got degrees in business administration, business management and finance.
"I always thought I was going to be able to do great things with basketball," Reed says. "Basketball did what I wanted it to do - pay for my education. I always tell people I wanted to be able to fall back on my brain."
It was basketball, though, that brought Reed to North Carolina.
In the fall of 2004, he was to play with the Asheville Altitude, an NBA development league team, when an injury sidelined him. Reed went to Duke University for medical care and ended up staying in Durham. "I didn't want to move back to New Jersey," he says. "North Carolina and Texas were the two states I always thought I would end up in, and here I am."
Big brother Malcom
Reed tried his hand at business and worked at several drug stores. Then, several years ago, he launched a basketball program that evolved into the D3 mentoring program. Leon Frazier, a 23-year-old Durham Southern High School graduate who played point guard at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Ala., credits Reed with much of his success.
"To make a long story short, I went to four different schools playing basketball," Frazier says. "Malcom's like my big brother. He gives me a lot of tough love. He's a good man. He helped me stay strong." Frazier plans to graduate from college this spring and try out for professional teams overseas. But each summer, he returns to Durham and helps Reed with the mentoring program.
Later this spring, Reed will take 50 young men on a tour of colleges in New Jersey. He makes the students set up their own school interviews, but he arranges meetings and dinners with people who mentored him along the way.
Though D3 operates on a limited budget of about $40,000, Reed says, many people volunteer their time and fundraising events help supplement funds. Reed says he dips into his personal savings - money he has from real estate and other investments he made with people he met while in West Virginia.
Karyee Lewis, a new college student who grew up in Durham, has relied on Reed for help. In 10th grade, Lewis dropped out of school in Durham. He had brushes with the law and difficulties with his parents.
A friend introduced Lewis to Reed a couple of years ago. Since then, Lewis has obtained his high school equivalency diploma, revived his passion in playing football and enrolled in Erie Community College in Buffalo, N.Y. Reed has a lot to do with Lewis' new, optimistic outlook. Not only does he tout the benefits of leaving a familiar community to pursue an education, he reminds those who go to keep up with the people they leave. "He can act like a father sometimes and like a brother sometimes," Lewis says. "He took me under his wing. I wouldn't be in school if it wasn't for him. He just wants to see his people, people in his community, do well."
Though Reed has reached out to his mother and older brother, they have not reconciled since his difficult teenage years. His younger sister lived with him in Durham as she finished high school, but she has returned to New Jersey. Reed thinks of the people he mentors as family and helps them because of that, citing his lack of a family structure growing up.
"The fact that I never had it," Reed says, "that's part of what drives me."
"Wassup," the message says. " I was tryna c if u culd help me out. im tryna get bak in basketball shape and get in to a school."
Reed, the 30-year-old founder of the D3 Community Outreach mentoring program in Durham, is slowly building a reputation as a man who can and will help "knuckleheaded" youth turn their lives around. The author of the Facebook message found Reed through a friend who had just gotten into junior college in upstate New York.
Reed, a former college basketball player who made a few knuckleheaded moves of his own in his teen years, knows what it's like to need someone in times of trouble. And as a nod to the mentors who guided him to a better way of life, Reed gives his time, energy and money freely to young men who truly are committed to change.
He helps them study for GED tests and lines up volunteers to coach them in subjects beyond his expertise. He shuttles students to and from testing sites. He takes them on college tours, helps a few select students out with rent, tuition and books, and brags about their accomplishments as if they were his own children.
"For a young person to take the time and contact you," Reed says, "how do you turn your back?"
Reed was born in South Carolina but spent most of his childhood in a small community outside Ocean City, N.J. Things were tough. He never met his father and for years thought of his oldest brother as the man of the house. But when that brother, four years his senior, moved out on his own, Reed started having difficulties at home.
When he was 14, he came home one day to find his mother at the door with a knife, telling him he wasn't coming inside anymore. All his clothes, shoes, a radio and other possessions were outside in two garbage bags.
For two weeks, Reed was homeless. He slept near a trash can and did not go to school.
Then a man who owned an efficiency motel allowed him to stay on the property if he would do handyman work around the place. Reed, though, continued his spiral downward. Though he played basketball his freshman year of high school, he became ineligible his sophomore year, the year he got in trouble with the law for armed robbery and stealing a car.
Judge intervenes
Those legal troubles landed Reed in a Cape May County, N.J., courtroom, where a judge forced him to change his lifestyle. Not only did the judge, a tall, imposing man, send Reed off to a juvenile offender boot camp at a Cape May Coast Guard post, he also insisted that Reed keep up his grades, play high school basketball and return to his courtroom several times a month for a status update.
That judge, Reed says, even showed up at one of his high school basketball games. "It was a bit of excitement," Reed recalled. "It was like someone was checking up on me."
That nurturing experience, and his positive relationship with the high school basketball coach and an English teacher who challenged him to do better, led Reed to Ocean County College for two years of community college. More important, his experience in Toms River, N.J., led to the first of three post high school degrees that he cherishes today.
After two years in Toms River, Reed transferred to the Institute of Technology at West Virginia University to play for the Golden Bears. Those experiences afforded him an opportunity to try out for the Philadelphia 76ers, though he didn't make the team, and for brief professional stints with the Harlem Globetrotters and teams in France and Germany.
Though sports opened doors, Reed thought it was important to focus on books, too. He got degrees in business administration, business management and finance.
"I always thought I was going to be able to do great things with basketball," Reed says. "Basketball did what I wanted it to do - pay for my education. I always tell people I wanted to be able to fall back on my brain."
It was basketball, though, that brought Reed to North Carolina.
In the fall of 2004, he was to play with the Asheville Altitude, an NBA development league team, when an injury sidelined him. Reed went to Duke University for medical care and ended up staying in Durham. "I didn't want to move back to New Jersey," he says. "North Carolina and Texas were the two states I always thought I would end up in, and here I am."
Big brother Malcom
Reed tried his hand at business and worked at several drug stores. Then, several years ago, he launched a basketball program that evolved into the D3 mentoring program. Leon Frazier, a 23-year-old Durham Southern High School graduate who played point guard at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Ala., credits Reed with much of his success.
"To make a long story short, I went to four different schools playing basketball," Frazier says. "Malcom's like my big brother. He gives me a lot of tough love. He's a good man. He helped me stay strong." Frazier plans to graduate from college this spring and try out for professional teams overseas. But each summer, he returns to Durham and helps Reed with the mentoring program.
Later this spring, Reed will take 50 young men on a tour of colleges in New Jersey. He makes the students set up their own school interviews, but he arranges meetings and dinners with people who mentored him along the way.
Though D3 operates on a limited budget of about $40,000, Reed says, many people volunteer their time and fundraising events help supplement funds. Reed says he dips into his personal savings - money he has from real estate and other investments he made with people he met while in West Virginia.
Karyee Lewis, a new college student who grew up in Durham, has relied on Reed for help. In 10th grade, Lewis dropped out of school in Durham. He had brushes with the law and difficulties with his parents.
A friend introduced Lewis to Reed a couple of years ago. Since then, Lewis has obtained his high school equivalency diploma, revived his passion in playing football and enrolled in Erie Community College in Buffalo, N.Y. Reed has a lot to do with Lewis' new, optimistic outlook. Not only does he tout the benefits of leaving a familiar community to pursue an education, he reminds those who go to keep up with the people they leave. "He can act like a father sometimes and like a brother sometimes," Lewis says. "He took me under his wing. I wouldn't be in school if it wasn't for him. He just wants to see his people, people in his community, do well."
Though Reed has reached out to his mother and older brother, they have not reconciled since his difficult teenage years. His younger sister lived with him in Durham as she finished high school, but she has returned to New Jersey. Reed thinks of the people he mentors as family and helps them because of that, citing his lack of a family structure growing up.
"The fact that I never had it," Reed says, "that's part of what drives me."
anne.blythe@newsobserver.com or 919 836-4948
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