PPI Lends a Hand at the “Hoops in the Hood” Cross-City Tournament

PPI founder Sean Tuohey watches over a game of basketball, with just a couple of tweaks to enhance its teamwork potential: games are only one minute long and there’s no dribbling allowed.

On Saturday, August 18th, with the support of adidas, PeacePlayers International (PPI) assisted with the “Hoops in the Hood” Cross-City Tournament in Chicago. “Hoops in the Hood” is a network of organizations in 12 neighborhoods throughout the city’s South and West Side that use basketball as a way to support the positive development of young people and reclaim public space from fear and violence, coordinated by LISC/Chicago.

Throughout the summer, the twelve “Hoops in the Hood” neighborhoods have hosted local basketball leagues, each of which entered an “All Star Team” in the Cross-City Tournament, this year held in the name of “Peace, Unity and Respect.” PPI, led by the organization’s founder, Sean Tuohey, was on hand to help bridge divides among the teams from different neighborhoods using a variety of teambuilding activities, like collaborative basketball dribbling races and an “egg drop.” With approximately 200 young people in attendance, the Cross-City Tournament is one of Chicago’s largest neighborhood-based basketball tournaments, and PPI was proud to play a small part in this effort to stem the tide of violence in Chicago with a sport deeply embedded in the city’s culture.

This visit was the latest in an ongoing partnership between PPI and LISC/Chicago member organizations, led by Beyond Sport Award-Winner Beyond the Ball, in which PPI is its organizational knowledge of how to use basketball to effectively bring young people together and learning from its partners own work engaging youth in some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods.