While hotels, casinos and restaurants on and off the Strip are looking forward to next year's NBA All-Star game in Las Vegas as a source of cash, a group of local black leaders wants to use the event to raise cash for minority youth sports programs across the valley.
The group is inviting private and public leaders to a meeting at noon Saturday at Nevada Partners, 710 W. Lake Mead Blvd. The idea is to announce plans for a concert that would raise money for dozens of local basketball, baseball, football and track teams.
The Feb. 18 All-Star game is the perfect excuse for drawing attention to disadvantaged minority youths "because 80 percent of the players (in the NBA) are African-Americans," says Gene Collins, a fixture on the local civil rights scene for at least a decade, working with the local NAACP and the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network.
Stan Washington, who is on the concert's steering committee, says "that most of the league's black players come from disadvantaged neighborhoods and that's the cream of which the NBA makes millions from So the very neighborhoods that produce the cream need to benefit."
He said the event - which supporters hope draws NBA players Lebron James and Shaquille O'Neal as hosts and singers such as Bono, Mary J. Blige and Jay-Z - "is about the little people. So many youth can't be in Little Leagues because parents are on crack or whatever."
He notes the event's proceeds will be disbursed to nonprofit organizations, which he hopes to sign up this weekend.
Assemblyman Harvey Munford, D-Las Vegas, whose district is 45 percent black, has been tapped as chairman of the effort.
Munford compares the project to Andre Agassi's annual benefit that raises millions for his foundation, which funds projects for disadvantaged youth, including a school in the same neighborhood where Saturday's meeting will be held.
The comparison was echoed by others.
"Andre Agassi doesn't have to hold a hat and beg for money," Washington says.
Saturday's meeting and others scheduled for coming weeks are meant to firm up support from the community and local politicians, Washington says: "When you build a house, you don't start with a roof."
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