(CortacaToday) — “Neighborhood Heroes,” is a short series of installments on our outstanding community members and unsung heroes—people who are loved by the community, that serve in ways that don’t always receive recognition.

In the first installment, we’ll learn about Greater Ithaca Activities Center program leader and coordinator, Ithaca high school basketball coach, local artist, father and husband, Rahmel Mack. He was nominated for the feature by GIAC executive director, Leslyn McBean Clairborne. Providing reason for her nomination, Clairborne said, “Rahmel is almost single-handedly responsible for elevating a culture of basketball in the city of Ithaca. Beyond that, his work as a role model and influencer to teens has helped to increase the academic success and graduation rate particularly for students of color.”

In meeting with Mack, he touched on the importance of accessibility to athletic programs and the arts in shaping a resilient youth here in Ithaca.

Mack first came to Ithaca from Brooklyn as a high schooler back in 1998. During high school, he was involved in GIAC programs and played for multiple basketball teams, volunteering in the summer as a staff member. Shortly after high school he moved back to the city, but eventually landed back in Ithaca, beginning his career with GIAC.

Mack believes in promoting the arts and the sport of basketball to youth. He wants to counter the negative rhetoric around basketball that carries racial undertones. “There’s these stigmas attached to basketball in Ithaca, that’s weird, like the basketball bringing violence or negative energy … But then, there’s tons of suburban places where basketball is their number one sport. [In Ithaca], it always has these racial undertones, because it’s a certain demographic that plays basketball … so, I just want to showcase everything the right way.”

“It’s the one sport I know in and out and love. And it’s fun, so I want to energize that culture here [in Ithaca].” 

Basketball is the perfect community sport, it’s easy to start playing and it’s a good outlet: “For me it was a distraction from nonsense … and basketball was always the easiest sport to play. All you needed was good weather and a ball.”

The natural consequences of the sport provides many opportunities for kids: “This can be a tool to motivate them to get through their grades. It can be a tool to make friends. It can be to stay in shape.”

Similarly, Mack is passionate about art, and particularly hip hop music. Hip hop, like basketball, has been deemed a negative influence on youth by popular media, when really the majority of the music in this category does quite the opposite—serving as a tool for youth’s empowerment, community and positivity.  Often, basketball and music are the tools Mack uses in his mentorship at GIAC to teach kids discipline and growth saying, “I just want to abolish all those fears and provide fun for kids.”

Promoting Girl’s Basketball

One of Mack’s greatest accomplishments is starting GIAC Firebirds Basketball, a non-profit travel AAU program. This began with a girls travel team for fifth and sixth graders back in 2016. The girls didn’t have any alternative for travel basketball, so Mack took it upon himself to create and coach a team.

“They went from being this team in fifth grade to this team that were making noise. They were crushing it. We were beating teams like seventy to six … These are girls who just were just learning. And it progressed like that for two years, they qualified for Nationals, they won big tournaments against super teams … They were just this group of girls from Ithaca, New York, and they were being compared, (which I still hate), to playing like boys, because they had handle and all the stuff that you would see boys do is what my girls were doing.”

Former Firebirds team members and now teammates on Daytona State women’s basketball, Kyaija Stewart and Mia Little described Mack as a “father figure.” 

“He has an energy that brings everybody else’s energy up,” Stewart said.

Mack encouraged Little to play basketball in the first place, “I was attending GIAC summer camp and I was placed in the GIAC Jumpers, a jump-rope group … Rahmel came up to me one day and asked, ‘Would you want to switch one day and be in the basketball group?’ ever since then I’ve played basketball.”

Little originally went to college out in Niagara and was paying out of pocket but wanted to transfer to play ball at Daytona. However, she didn’t have the funding or support. Mack took it upon himself to help her, “He talked to GIAC and they were able to loan me enough money so that I could get everything I needed to transfer.”

Honoring his family

By now it may be obvious that Mack creates from a place of passion. After his younger cousins Prince Jakim Griffith and Domonique Elijah Slaughter-Smith passed in a car accident eleven years ago, he started the Prince Jakim and Domonique summer basketball camp to carry on their legacy. Griffith was a star basketball player at Ithaca High School, leading his team to win several championships. “Kids walk around with silhouettes of my little cousins on their jersey, and they know [them] without having to have met [them].”

The camp has become a huge success over the years and demand continues to rise. Kids travel from as far as from Elmira in the summer just to be coached by Mack. Beyond summer camp, kids are traveling from all over to participate in the GIAC leagues that Mack coordinates and coaches.

More than a coach

Basketball is one of many outlets of expression for Mack, “Basketball has been this big machine for me, but there’s art, photography, music, poetry, I’m just like this jack of all trades.” The new recreation center, a five-year project, that is anticipated to have a grand opening mid to late August, not only has a full-size brand new basketball court but music recording and video-editing studios as well. Mack encourages kids at GIAC to learn technical and artistic skills. Getting up and moving is just one important component to his mentorship, the other is working the creative and mental muscles.

He uses all of disciplines to cater his programs to his mentees: “A girl in my program, we do these writing exercises as an outlet for her to clear her head …. She comes in and we challenge each other.” Mack hangs her poems up to encourage taking pride in her work. Similarly, Mack’s images from his photography pursuits are hung in rooms in the recreation center, setting the example to not to limit oneself.

Top-tier training without the price

GIAC has long provided kids the opportunity to play basketball in the summer through the Rashad Richardson Basketball League (RRBL). In the three years Mack has been program coordinator of the league, he’s continuously added on opportunities, investing in the players success beyond the court. “We treat it like it’s a big city tournament in New York. The kids see it that way and they take pride in it.” He wants to give kids “the first-class experience without having to pay first class money.”

Among those changes, Mack brought in local business to sponsor teams. He takes the teams’ jerseys and adds a different sponsor logo to each team jersey, similar to how it’s done in the NBA. His reasoning, “I want more community involvement in it, because it’s a memorial league, I feel like everyone should be a part of it.” 

For the the RRBL summer camp, Mack provides kids with serious training and custom gear, making the experience like that of an elite Nike camp without the high cost. The fee for his camp is more of a “formality,” as he puts it. “Parents are ecstatic when they see their kids get a uniform and a backpack with their names on [it]. And, they’re like, wait, what? Knowing they didn’t pay that much for this, and then they see how serious the training is, how much better their kids are in six weeks, their kids go from being a new player at basketball to one of their strongest kids at their school when they go back home.”

GIAC has given Mack a platform to do what he does best. Beyond basketball as a team sport, his support has given youth options for the future previously unavailable or unknown. He creates a supportive environment where children can thrive and provide personalized support and resources.

Fulfilling this need in a child’s life is what keeps him motivated, “Being a kid who didn’t have people helping me, I see how helpful it is for kids, once someone believes in you.”

Kids from disadvantaged backgrounds can often miss out on the formative experience of a recreational sport due to family financial struggles. But at GIAC, hugely in part to Mack’s contributions, this isn’t so. “If you can’t afford the fee, we have scholarships,” he said regarding making his basketball camps and leagues as accessible to kids as possible.

Leadership

In 2018 he founded an AAU travel team, The Immortal Wolfpack. “We just won a Nike event,” and his team recently came back from Worlds in Orlando at ESPN Worldwide Sports, “We placed seventh out of 68 teams.” 

Travel basketball is important to Mack because it puts things into perspective and humbles the players. “Exposure helps you see what you are and what you’re not, and that reality is what helps you work. If you think you’re the best, there’s no reason to work. You need a reminder that there’s someone better than me. It’s easy to be a big fish in a little pond.”

Loss is another important lesson Mack teaches his players, “Every time you fail at something, getting up [and] dusting yourself off, creates that resilience that you need to be where you say you want to go. These kids talk about D1, D2 dreams. But if you don’t learn how to be resilient, how you gonna get there?”

Leadership is not something he takes lightly. “I work really hard to be consistent in all avenues of my life and to respect the futures of the people watching me, because if there is a kid that I don’t realize idolizes everything I do, the one thing I make look cool, that’s wrong, can hurt their trajectory. It’s a lot of responsibility.”

Neighborhood Heroes series

The underlying message in these stories is that the actions of one individual can compound and become far-reaching. Think back to something a teacher, coach, family member or even a passing stranger did or said that stuck with you, molded you. These are the stories that matter in our community. Would you like to nominate someone for the “Neighborhood Heroes,” series? Email gcondon@cyradiogroup.com or MCavataio@cayugamediagroup.com with your nomination and summary of why you want to recognize this unsung hero!