Church-sponsored league celebrates 50 years

CHRISTIAN ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION

The Christian Athletic Association marks its 50th anniversary of helping young people develop through sports.

For 50 years, the Christian Athletic Association has helped Black people participate in organized sports.

Founded in a time when Black Charlotteans faced hurdles to accessing playing fields or courts, CAA filled in the gap. The association has produced scores of high school, college and even professional athletes while providing a safe environment for participants.

Leon Williams, who oversees basketball for CAA, said he’s grateful to have served as much as it has been for the kids who have been helped, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It's such a blessing,” Williams said. “We've been there in basketball, and we don't turn kids away. They can always come and play. You know, they just have to be represented by the church and we go by Christian rules and stuff. But other than that, we don’t cut anybody. You can come and play. 

“COVID hurt us, COVID set us back. It definitely set us back in spring sports, and we’re still trying to recover from that. Basketball, we just finished our second year, coming back from COVID, so we're recovering in that area, but I think we’re building stronger, and that's a good thing for us.”

The CAA is also much more than sports. Williams said that before COVID-19 hit, they were offering instructional leagues for grade school kids, as well as life prep courses for young adults.

“One of the things that we do, we have what we call instructional leagues,” he said. “We started at 4 years old or 5, and we went all the way up to 18. Just before COVID, we had what we call college life prep, and that was 19- to 23-year-olds who, if they came to the program, we had lectures. Yes, they played basketball, but we helped them get jobs if they needed to. And the first year, we sent 14 kids out of that program to a college, maybe CPCC or junior college, and 11 of them finished. Some of them went to the military.”

One lingering issue is the lack of youth baseball access. Long gone are the days of kids going to fields with friends after school, mainly because the facilities no longer exist or require payment to reserve.

“We know that Major League Baseball is very, very scarce as far as participation is concerned in this generation,” said Joe Bloomfield, CAA’s commissioner of spring sports. “When I came along, we always had Black superstars that played… and they made an impact in the community. Everybody wanted to be like Willie Mays, and we wanted to be like some of the great stars that were in the Major Leagues. So, baseball has pretty much been taken away from our communities, the fields and stuff that we even used to play on are no longer available for us to play on.

“The Black community is really challenged with, first of all, getting facilities; second is getting the interest of baseball back in the community and having the leadership and the finances necessary to do so.”

In response, CAA plans on starting at the T-ball level. 

“We are working with T-ball programs within our community,” Bloomfield said. “One of the challenges is getting young minorities back involved early in life and see where that takes us. Whether that be the high school, college or potentially pro level at some point, that is what I am challenged with doing. I think Major League Baseball also has a movement to get kids back in baseball as well.”

Mt. Sinai Baptist Church athletic director Jerron Jamerson has been around CAA his entire life. His dad, Miller, helped start the organization, whose mission is to serve through the promotion of Christian values and sportsmanship, not profits. 

“I would say one thing that we do focus on is affordability,” Jamerson said. “This is not meant to necessarily make money. A lot of leagues nowadays are kind of like for-profit nonprofits. But that's never been our mission. It literally is to promote Christian values, to promote community between our churches and also our young people, to get them to understand what we can have if we work together.”

CAA’s leaders agree the league has a bright future and want to see it thrive over the next 50 years.

“The next five to 10 years for us to get our program back the way it was before COVID” is a goal, Williams said. “That would be the short range, because churches got hurt with COVID. Money didn't come in, and it costs to play… but when you've been led by God, and you have that fire in your belly and in your heart to do the right thing for these kids and keep it centerful, forget about all the other nonsense. Do what's right for the kids.”

Said Bloomfield: “I think what I would like to see is that we re-energize our communities to emphasize that baseball is important, to work to integrate our youth to the point where they are growing in the different leagues… and also to keep God as part of the whole process.”

Said Jamerson: “In the next 10 to 15 years, I would love to see us still going strong. I want to see us continuing on with our mission to be able to provide opportunities for athletics in a Christian environment, possibly in the future, hopefully be able to expand to maybe offer more sports. You teach the kids, even though, right now, they are 10 or 11 years old, the things that you learn right now; being a good person, trusting in God, being good students, your behavior, listening to your parents, and trying to reinforce those concepts is and make actually understand that you know, those things are important to whatever that you do.”

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