Hoop dreams don’t come easy in Baltimore. When the ball is out on the hardwood for a pickup game and a player delivers an indelible amalgamation of handles before spraying a fadeaway three-pointer from near half court in one of Charm City’s immortal sanctums, it’s not sweet. Instead, the mind-boggling play is fused with trash talk and bragging rights that ignite fierce competition.
The battles provoke the inner beast and desire for respect. Earning fortuity on the court demands the optimum degree of belief in self. Ignore the height and bypass the size and stature. Measure the tenacity and the will to succeed. When it comes to basketball in the heart of Baltimore—a city submerged within the country’s top five metropolises for homicides, along with drug addiction and a massive legion of crime—nothing is given and everything is earned. That credence was instilled into LSU star Angel Reese.
In the summer of 2016 as a freshman at St. Frances Academy—the oldest self-sustaining Black Catholic high school in the country, not far from the Baltimore Juvenile Detention Center and the Baltimore City Correctional Facility—Reese quickly realized the value of being bold and standing up for herself and her teammates. At 14 years old, she was playing in a game at “The Dome,” one of the vaunted courts in east Baltimore, where basketball is woven together with passion and life lessons. “Every game was a dog fight for them,” says the elder Angel, Reese’s mother. “They were top dogs, and there was pressure to win.” The acclaimed semi-indoor court is enclosed by a series of gates. As Reese remembers it, there were fiery exchanges with the opposition. “You have to be who you are and not be apologetic about it,” she says. The crowded venue included droves of fans endlessly banging on the fences, forcing officials to stop the game.
