HIGH POINT, N.C. — As crime continues to rise around the country, two men have brought back an event to help keep the kids off the street. The men say they want youth to have another outlet.

What You Need To Know

  • Midnight Basketball started 11 years ago in an effort to help stop violence in High Point

  • The program is teaching young men there is more beyond sports

  • Two men are taking a different approach to helping teenage boys stay off the streets

Byron Stricklin is the president and CEO of The Mind Group of High Point and has been coaching basketball for the last 15 years, starting with his daughter's basketball team. He says coaching is his purpose in life.

“You know where there is a purpose, there is a call to action. So we’re just calling the community to action to support these kids,” Stricklin said.

Stricklin is co-organzing the return of Midnight Basketball in High Point. It started 12 years ago with the help of the city and the High Point Police Department, but because of the pandemic, it has been shut down for the past two years.

“These guys are very talented, but like I said before, if we don’t support them now, then when they get older and move on then what connection do they have to the community? This right here feeds their soul because this is what they love to do,” Stricklin said.

They’re using late-night basketball to teach life lessons in a weeklong initiative to stop the uptick in violence in the city.

“Life is about attention to detail. Basketball is a very detailed-oriented game," Stricklin said. "So, you can tell by how we stopped this drill everything was not very tight and when things aren’t tight, you leave and don’t really pay attention to details. You leave money on the table.” 

The kids are sent into breakout sessions to learn about entrepreneurship, careers in gaming and graphics. That is where Stricklin’s co-organizer, the artist named DRLToons comes in, who was a part of the original start of Midnight Basketball, teaching young people how to become successful outside of the game.

“I don’t look at them as the 12-year-olds and the teenagers. I look at them as the 25-years-olds, what you going to be when that dude shows up,”​ DRLToons said.

The name DRLToons comes from the decision to honor his son who passed away in 2001. And he tasked the young athletes with creating an essay on what they plan to do with their lives if the game doesn’t work out. He's working to give them a different perspective on life.

“Anything that a young impressionable kid needs now, that they’re not thinking about, that’s what we are trying to give them,” DRLToons said.

And DRLToons is teaching the kids to look beyond basketball, offering different options on opportunities to dream bigger.