Elijah Shabazz has hoop dreams

Things are quiet in Pollard Park in Oakland.

The breeze rustling through trees nearby and children shooting a basketball are the only sounds that break a calm silence. 

At mid-court, standing on the cracked blue and gray concrete of the park’s basketball court, is Elijah Shabazz — an Oakland native who has spent an untold number of hours fighting for his dreams on this very slab of concrete. This is where his love of basketball and the community first began.

“This is all we had to do to stay out of trouble,” said Shabazz, who currently lives in MetroWest and attends Valencia College. “This court, we would come here and play basketball. Before this was a park, it was just a court … waking up every day — chasing my dreams to be successful at basketball — I knew I was going to be successful in life, but I just didn’t know at what.

“Coming here every day made me grind harder,” he said. “It feels like home.”

This court was the birth site of a vision to take charge and lead his own life, and through the years, that vision has been challenged again and again as Shabazz has dealt with the dissolution of his parents’ marriage and the subsequent years of homelessness that followed suit. But now, Shabazz has realized his dream of making it in the basketball world, and now is the time for him to act.
 

BROKEN STREETS

Growing up in Oakland, Shabazz had a normal life and a normal family that loved one another. Then, one day, that changed.

Shabazz’s father left when Shabazz was 13, and his life descended into chaos and struggle as he looked to find a balance in his life.

“From the age of 13 to the age of 18, I had to become a man for myself — I had to be out here on my own and I had to grow up quick,” Shabazz said. “I was homeless, had nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep — all I had was a mind telling me, ‘You can do it, Shabazz,’ so I never gave up.”

During his time at West Orange High School — from which he graduated in 2017 — Shabazz remained homeless. He slept on the floor of a small shack on Avalon Road, but generally kept to himself when it came to his own personal problems — which often were made worse due to the company he kept.

 After his dad left, there was no guidance or structure, so he looked up to the people around him — many of whom were no saints. All of a sudden, Shabazz had been put in the middle of a no-win situation, and the influence of these people would end up putting Shabazz in the juvenile detention center for 21 days.

“After I left jail, I was on house arrest, and in 11th grade I just saw my life going downhill, and I realized I had to get these people out of my life and I had to be able to think for Elijah Shabazz,” Shabazz said. “Me realizing that this wasn’t what I wanted to do, and my dad … he snapped me back into reality to understand that I’m bigger than this.”
 

REALIZING A DREAM

Shabazz’s love of basketball has always gone beyond the sport itself — it was what helped him through the tough times.

After attending Oakland Avenue Charter School, Shabazz went to Lakeview Middle School where he played basketball under head coach Ethan Mankoff. For Shabazz, basketball was the only thing that could keep him focused and distracted from a home life that was slowly eroding.

Shabazz would lose that safety net of basketball in ninth grade when he tried out for — and was cut — from the West Orange basketball team as a freshman. It was this moment of despair that ultimately led to a dream that Shabazz is just now realizing today.

“(The West Orange coach) didn’t bother to ask what I was going through,” Shabazz said. “And the crazy thing is, is when he cut me, I said, ‘One day I’m going to be successful in life and have my own organization where I’ll be able to not cut kids … I’ll make sure I ask kids (about) what they are going through and do they need help.’”

It was then that Shabazz realized his goal was to ultimately lead an AAU basketball program, but it has taken some time and planning to get there. But now, things are taking shape.

Shabazz’s new organization, called the Be Successful Dream Team, will be an inclusive program for budding young basketball players in grades six through 12 and will operate out of Lakeview Middle. Shabazz’s old coach, Mankoff, will help coach in the organization.

Beyond the sport, there’s also the desire to give these young athletes an outlet to give them something worth believing in.

“I just want to see kids chase their dreams, because my dreams were cut short,” Shabazz said. “It just means a lot to me in a way that I can’t describe.”