HISTORY
The Little House On a Hill,
Abandoned and Left To Die
The story in a nutshell goes like this:
Five young men seeking competition for a game of basketball on a summer day started to shoot around among ourselves and soon there was a crowd of more than fifteen. That was in the summer of 1957, and from that time until now we have made that little house along with its basketball court our home court.
By the way, the five young men are as follows: Bill Harris, Boysie Hux, James Davis, Leonard Covington, and Dennis Talbot.
After a few years of pick-up games and arguments, the club was formed with the membership consisting of eight members: Bill Harris, Boysie Hux, James Davis, Dennis Talbot, Leonard Covington, David Tate, Thaddeus Perry, and Lorenzo Plater. The club took the name of Cloverdale A/C. The majority of our activity was on Sunday mornings.
Once the popularity of the playground grew, another group headed by Donald Payne and Willard Wright formed an unlimited basketball league which was played on Saturday afternoon, and soon the State Penitentiary Team was accepted as a member. After that league folded, Operation Champ set up a league on Saturday that only lasted for a short time and they were gone.
On a Sunday morning in 1978 we formed a basketball league for ages thirty-five and over consisting of four teams of ten players on each team.
Today, our Sunday Morning Leagues consist of Young Men – forty players ages thirty to thirty-nine, Masters – forty players ages forty to forty-nine, and Solid Gold – forty players ages fifty and beyond. This is a year round program for the young and the old.
We also have a great program for our youth, but we are limited to summer months only, because indoor facilities are out of our reach financially; we are a non-profit organization.
The monies we generate allow us to operate our summer youth program, which consist of team shirts for each child, field trips, food at the end of each camp day, refreshments, score books, basketballs, first aid kits, disinfectants, scouring powder, soaps, toilet tissue, and paper towels.
We think our youth program should stay in force the full year. We build up a relationship with the youth and their parents for three months in the summer and we lose contact for the next nine months. All that has been gained is subject to be lost because of not having a place to continue the program.
Please take note that we are not asking you for financial help but if there is any available we would gladly accept it to aid our cause.
In the past we have gotten great response from the past president of the City Council, Mary Pat Clarke, and the former councilperson of the fourth district, The Honorable Mayor Sheila Dixon. We hope this administration will continue to be a part of our efforts to serve the Winchester/Sandtown Community as we have done in the past.
The City of Baltimore is known up and down the east coast because of our youth program. Places we have taken the Youth – Philadelphia, PA; Atlantic City, NJ; Brooklyn, NY; Annapolis, MD; Norfolk, VA; New Bern, NC; and West Virginia.