Edrick Dickens long had a vision of how a night of basketball would look and feel on the recently upgraded outdoor courts at the Doolittle Community Center in Las Vegas.
There’s a standing room only crowd packed onto the newly installed covered bleachers, an emcee is on the court energizing supporters, and some of the best ballers in the city are challenging each other. And, of course, the play is physical — extremely physical.
Doolittle, on J Street at Lake Mead Boulevard, has been the home to the best pick-up basketball in the city for more than 50 years. City legends like Michael “Spiderman” Burns and “Sudden” Sam Smith, who both eventually played at UNLV, or former NBA player CJ Watson first had to prove themselves at the center’s gymnasium against players from the neighborhood.
That proving ground, thanks to a $200,000 donation from The Shaquille O’Neal Foundation and business partner Icy Hot, now also includes a pair of outdoor courts with all of the bells and whistles worthy of the city’s unquestioned landing spot for recreation basketball players.
The upgrades, which had their debut last week, include: new surfacing, custom colors and floor graphics, new basketball goals, shaded bleachers that seat 1,000 spectators and an ultramodern electronic scoreboard.
“Basketball has always been synonymous with Doolittle,” said Dickens, a leisure coordinator for the city and the Doolittle center’s director. “This takes it to another level.”
Prior to the pandemic, Dickens was working with Zappos and the Las Vegas Aces to renovate the hardtop courts, hoping to transfer the outdoor setting into what’s seen at Rucker Park in New York or Venice Beach in Los Angeles. Games at those locations are legendary, and Dickens firmly believes the competition at Doolittle will also reach a similar status.
Dickens is a native of the area near Doolittle and grew up playing — and watching — games at the center. More important, he stresses, a new generation will have similar memories thanks to the donation.
“When they approached us with this opportunity, it was everything we had talked about before and expanded on,” Dickens said. “It was just an unbelievable opportunity to have Shaq involved.”
“The Shaq Courts” at Doolittle also include an art installation of a life-sized pair of the NBA legend’s shoes. O’Neal, a Las Vegas resident, takes pride in being an active part of his adopted hometown, showing up last weekend at the court’s groundbreaking and testing out the new rims with children from the area.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to continue to live here,” O’Neal told the Sun earlier in the month. “I’m mostly in Atlanta and Las Vegas, that’s where people see me throughout the year. People see me around doing regular people stuff in Las Vegas, like going to Walmart or Target. With my foundation, that’s why we chose Las Vegas and Atlanta. I want to take care of places where I live.”
O’Neal launched his foundation a few years ago to create a pathway for underserved children to reach their potential, making numerous contributions to the Boys & Girls Club and Communities in Schools programs in Las Vegas and Atlanta. He also has a home in Atlanta, where he works for TNT as a basketball commentator.
Cedric Crear, the Las Vegas city councilman whose ward encompasses Doolittle, is connected to O’Neal through Perry Rogers, the basketball great’s agent who also lives in Las Vegas.
Everyone agreed with Crear’s pitch to have O’Neal involved in helping elevate the Doolitte complex, a community landing spot with everything from a senior center and pool to arts and craft classes and afterschool programming. The donation was made to the city’s philanthropic partner, The Mayor’s Fund for Las Vegas LIFE, and covered most of the cost of the renovation.
“These will be the courts to come play ball at in the city,” Crear said. “I think people are going to come from not only in the community but from all over the country to play.”
Crear’s passion for enhancing the area is personal, as he is native of the Historic Westside — roughly the area north of U.S. 95, south of Carey Avenue and Lake Mead Boulevard, east of Rancho Drive and west of Interstate 15. The Historic Westside logo that is part of the HUNDRED Plan — Historic Urban Neighborhood Design Redevelopment — linking the area’s past to the present is at center court.
Like Dickens, Crear will tell you that those long days as a child spent at Doolittle helped spur his ambitions to make his old stomping grounds an escape for the next generation.
The courts are a great window into the rest of the complex. In addition to unscripted pickup games played by whomever is at the park, the courts can also rented for events such as 3-on-3 tournaments.
“If I said to you, ‘Hey, meet me at the Shaq Court,’ you are going to know where that’s at,” Crear said.