“We have our ups and downs, but still no matter what, people are positive about things,” said Linda Miller, who heads the local neighborhood commission. “It’s not always bad. There are good things out here, too.”
George Goodman worked at the Barry Farm Recreation Center as a counselor and often served as a father figure to children from the neighborhood. From his home, Goodman could see them in the rec center, on the basketball court and in the swimming pool.
The residents of Barry Farm were stunned by the 31-year-old Goodman’s murder in 1984. No one in their right mind could want to kill Goodman. No one. “The majority of the neighborhood looked up to him,” Rawls said.
Rawls renamed the Barry Farms Community Basketball League in honor of Goodman in 2000. “I know he’s smiling down on us and seeing where we started and where we are today,” he said.
Talent in the house
Nowadays, high-profile NBA players are common “inside da gate,” a melting pot of various talent levels. Two-time NBA scoring champion Durant, a District native and member of the Oklahoma City Thunder, is a “Goodman league junkie,” Rawls said. Durant drew the largest crowd of the summer when he played on opening day.
The Goodman league is a rite of passage. Players who want to claim they’re the best in the area must prove themselves on Barry Farm’s court. Rawls wants John Wall, the Wizards’ star point guard, to “earn his stripes” in the league, as Arenas did.
“He doesn’t have to play for the entire summer, just once,” Rawls said.
The league doesn’t discriminate based on age, class or native roots, but talent is a must. According to “Baby Shaq,” players appreciate the Barry Farm brand of basketball where, he said, referees don’t protect NBA stars by calling minor fouls, as they sometimes do in New York’s Rucker Park or Los Angeles’ Drew League.
“New York and L.A., they think that they have the best outdoor league, but I go there and I let them know that D.C. got ballers too,” said Baby Shaq, who scored 41 points in the Roc Boys’ 117-113 win over Drama on June 20. “You can’t compare the Goodman league to neither one of them. Those leagues bring the NBA players out, but the Goodman league brings out talent from the neighborhoods.”
As play-by-play announcer, Rawls has called out the nicknames of most of D.C. street ball’s recent luminaries, including “The Grim Leaper,” “The Spongebob,” “D-Nice,” and “Midnight.” Rawls’s commentary booms through the microphone over the crowd’s conversations as he sits at half court beside the scorer’s table, where the scorekeeper holds burning incense to repel mosquitoes.
“I don’t know where he gets his genes from,” Rawls bellows over the speakers after “Iceman” makes a layup and earns a trip to the free throw line. “Because his father cannot do it.”
Anyone can fall victim to Rawls’s trash talk. During another game, a player dives for a loose ball inches from Miles. “Fall over here again and I’m gonna kick you in that . . . head,” Rawls warns him. The crowd erupts in laughter and the player can’t help but smile.
‘People love the product’
Off the court, leashed pit bulls and Yorkie puppies pace around the standing-room-only crowd. When a pit bull’s bark becomes threatening, Rawls calls a time out.
“Stop the game, stop the game. Hey,” Miles yells through his mic to a kid on the far side of the gate. “Them dogs on the inside or outside?”
Spectators pause their conversations and turn their attention to a teenage dog owner wearing a tank top, jeans and plaid boxers while both teams take advantage of the free timeout.
“Take those dogs outside the gate!”
Rawls says the league attracts players, coaches and spectators alike with a simple approach symbolized by its motto: “Peace. Love. Basketball.”
“People love the product,” Rawls said. “When you got a good product and a good environment, no matter what, the people are going to come out. . . Some are the same for the last six or seven years. Some are the same people since I’ve been running it since ’97. But there are new faces every year.”
The Goodman league may face a new challenge in coming years when the city carries out reconstruction at Barry Farm that currently calls for new housing to be built where the basketball court is located.
But John Stokes, chief of staff at the Department of Parks and Recreation, says officials realize the summer league’s place in the community.
“We have a Plan A, B and C to make sure we have the league preserved somewhere near that location,” Stokes said. “We can’t say where [now], but we’re committed to that.”
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