Thurston is a Santa’s Helper during Kids In Trouble annual toy party.
Thurston top left Hillcrest Saturday Program football team. The most talented group of young athletes I have ever been associated with. The players left to right of Thurston-Eugene Byrd-Alfred Harvey-Chet Underwood-Bernard “All World’ Hillary- Lloyd ‘Preacher’ Jones-Sidney Williams Middle Row: ??–Gene Ward-Johnny Brooks-Butch Harvey-Michael ‘Dynamite’ Palmer-Bottom Row: Junebug Bruce-Ronald Hamiltob-Billy ‘Buck’ Johnson-Dumb Dumb Wade–Kirby Burkes (RIP)
Brothers from the sandbox, Billy Johnson-Chet Underwood and Ricky Manning pay their respects to Thurston with the Bells-Hattie & Harold
Ricky Manning preparing to be a pool shark early.
Thurston kneeling second from left at the Kids In Trouble Police/Youth Forum at Bible Way Church in DC. The late Jim Brown (NFL) and Congressman Tom Davis (R-Va) were the co-host.
This has been a tuff year for Kids In Trouble alumni. The program lost Michael ‘Gee’ Gordon, Robert Richards, Willie Evans, Thurston McLain and support team members, William Walker, Sr and Joe Gorham.
During this sad ocassion and celebration of young men who were the cornerstones of the program I was told there are living members of the Harrison Playground/Hillcrest Saturday Program family who disliked me.
This revelation was like being told by your wife, the child you were walking down the isle to be married was not yours. The bad news was coming from a young man who was no stranger, I thought of him as a son.
It didn’t take me long to figured out the problem, the young people (now adults) I dedicated my adult life trying to provide them with important vehicles for a better life had misplaced priorities.
I am a better writer than I am a talker. I decided to respond in print.
The Problem: the folks he claimed disliked me evidently had me locked into their LITTLE WORLD of Harrison Playground and Hillcrest Saturday Program, and were looking for love in all the wrong places!
My work and influence as it relates to youth and sports media go far beyond Harrison Playground and Hillcrest Children’s Center Saturday Program–my work with youth and sports talk radio is celebrated around the WORLD. This often happens when one decides to be unconventional, like telling the TRUTH, be first, lead and not follow.
I am a pioneer in the community when it comes to Reach-Back: The NBA-NFL-MLB & NHL all followed Kids In Trouble when comes to providing opportunities for inner-city youth!
Reach Back via pro athletes started in DC with Willie Wood (NFL) and Dave Bing (NBA) via Kids In Trouble in 1967. They were the first pro athletes to come home and REACH-BACK to our youth.
Evidently, these player hating adults forgot, I had white kids bussed into the Hillcrest Saturday Program to tutor the elementary school children in the program. I could not find any black students from Howard U or DC Teacher’s colleges to reach back and help their own.
The white kids from Takomac Park are responsible for high school and colleges students around the country earning credits toward their diplomas and degrees for Community Service (unheard of in the 70s & 80s).
They forgot the Hillcrest Saturday Program had visitors on SaturdayS that included, Redskin players, Larry Brown, Roy Jefferson, Harold McLinton, Ted Vactor, Jim Brown (NFL), Dave Bing, Red Auerbach, Sam Jones, KC Jones (NBA), College Coaches, Clarence ‘Bighouse’ Gaines and John Thompson, Judge Luke Moore (DC Superior Court), and Petey Greene (W-O-L Radio).
I should not fail to mention the Washington Post columnist, Bill Raspberry. He won the Pulitzer Prize covering Harold Bell and Kids In Trouble.
Chet Underwood in background during Hillcrest Saturday Program Community Day. John Snipes the Mayor of U Street, Petey Greene and Bill Raspberry join the festivities.
The Harrison Playground and Hillcrest Saturday Program family had experiences like no other rec centers in the DMV. They experience MLB and the Washington Nationals, NFL and the Washington Redskins, NBA and the Washington Bullets.
Many got the opportunity to travel out of the city to Dave Bing’s, Sonny Hill/John Chaney, Bighouse Gaines/Earl Monroe and Spencer Haywood Basketball Camps–on my dime. Where is the beef?
Philadephia Mayor Wilson Goode visits the Sonny Hill/John Chaney basketball camp.
The Hillcrest Saturday Program All-Stars with Dave Bing
First ever NFL Films promo was videotaped at Hillcrest Saturday Program with Larry Brown and Harold McLinton teaching water safety to neighborhood youth.
Three DC pro athletes were blackballed from their hall of fame, Willie Wood (NFL), Earl Lloyd (NBA) and Maury Wills (MLB) Willie, literally pulled himself up by his bootstraps and became one the greatest defensive backs to ever play in the NFL. Earl, was the first black to play in the NBA. Maury made the homerun obselete as he ran and stole the legendary Ty Cobb out of the record books as the new King of the stolen base.
Despite never having a network television show I was still able to use my media worldly influence to get Willie and Earl voted into their Hall of Fame, Willie in 1989 and Earl in 2003. Thanks to my friends, Congressman John Lewis, NBA legend, Red Auerbach and legendary sports columnist Dick Heller.
Letter from Congressman John Lewis letting us know he was a TEAM player.
Check to see how many sports talk show host have campaigned to get BLACKballed pro athletes inducted into their Hall of Fame. Curt Flood, Johnny Sample, Dick Allen, Maury Wills, and others are still on the outside looking in and they all helped revolutionize their sport.
During my 6 years as a historian for the popular Bens Chili Bowl, I spoke with thousands of young people from around the globe. When they made travel plans to visit DC one of their stops would be Bens, The first thing they wanted to know was, if Harold Bell was scheduled to work on the day of their visit.
I have hundreds of letters and cards from students and teachers thanking me for my TRUTH to POWER talks. I was so popular, the Chili Bowl family started to become haters and naysayers. I said “No Mas” and walked away.
On top of that, every radio and television sports talk show format is a copy of Inside Sports including the WORLD LEADER ESPN!
Harold Bell and Inside Sports changed the way we talk and report sports in America and beyond. I was the first sports talk show host to add Sports and Politics to his format–no harm no foul.
I was the first sports media personality to be honored as Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian Magazine.
MY BAD, I APOLOGIZE FOR NOT TOOTING MY HORN LOUD ENOUGH FOR YOU GUYS TO HEAR!
My buddy Sonny Hill (NBA TV Analyst) was right on the one when he said, “Harold Bell your people in DC will be the last ones to appreciate what you have done for them.” He was right!
The neighborhood Pimp in the Pulpit I recently called out was not even in my class when it comes to helping young people and black folks in the DMV.
I worked with my friend, the late Dr. George Logan-El with an at-risk group of young men who called themselves, The Untouchables in the Alexandria, Virginia school system.
I organized a youth center on Homer Avenue in Suitland for after-school youth. The County Executive Jack Johnson now an ex-con still owes me $54,000.
I raised money on my birthday at the Foxtrappe Club to help find the killer or killers of Atlanta Black children in the 80s. If they had taken the time to research most of these stories are found on my blog / https://theoriginalinsidesports.blog
I worked with at-risk children and youth gangs in Simple City SE, Potomac Gardens, Mayfair Parkside, Mt. Pleasant, Kenilworth Courts, and Barry Farms. Let me remind them once again, I was not limited to Harrison Playground or Hillcrest Saturday Program.
When Muslim Leader Louis Farakhan had members of the Muslim Religion assigned to clean up drugs in my old neighborhood of Parkside/Mayfair, I was right there working with them. The drug dealers were vanishing until the Feds decided to cut funds to the program-too much success!
I walked the streets during the 1968 riots with nothing but a DC POLICE DEPARTMENT BADGE TRYING TO SAVE LIVES!
This is the same department I went toe to toe with regarding, The Thin Blue Line and Code of Silence relating to my two brothers. My younger brother Earl was a DC cop for 14 years and my older brother Bobby was a U. S. Marshall for 20 years. The difference was a black Assistant Chief, Tighman O’Bryant. He had the balls to stand up to the FOP the KKK of the department. They blocked him from becoming the first black chief.
How many times have you player haters seen any of these Pimps in the Pulpit out after dark or down at the City Council to protest racist cops?
Several years ago I showed up at the DC City Council Confirmation hearing on Peter Newsome to be the new Police Chief in DC. I sat right next to him and protested his nomination.
I made Mayor Muriel Bowser, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and City Councilwoman Mary Che aware he was a racist, a crook, and had his boys in blue steal evidence out of the property room that was to be used in court against him. Newsome was also found lying on a DC street corner drunk with his gun in his holster, and he had physically abused his wife and black girlfriend.
The Mayor and the DC City Council nominated him for the job anyway and violent crime has been on the rise ever since. Three years later he left by the backdoor and never told the Mayor he was taking a similar job in Virginia. Your Pimp in the Pulpit was nowhere to be found!
He was trying to tell you the kind of pimp he was when he tried to get my mentee Robert Richards to sell me out at The Hillcrest Saturday Program. That is what they do when they cannot control you, they try to get others to sell you out!
Once again our problem, we keep looking for love in all the wrong places. You don’t really know me, but I can’t blame you. Sometimes black folks cannot see the forest for the trees. I am glad that God knows my story and my heart. I am as flawed as the next man or woman. He knows my story, he wrote it.
When it comes to Gene Ward, Johnny Robinson, Michael ‘Gee’ Gordon, Robert Richards, Thurston McLain, Raymond Hill, and all of the Harrison Playground and Hillcrest crew–I lost some and I won some!
Some have called me an ANGRY BLACK MAN and sometimes they have been right–it has nothing to do with what the white man has done to me–it has more to do with what we have done to ourselves.
How many remember I was a member of Thurston’s wedding? Thurston McLain is one of my great testimonies, everything he saw me do he tried–all of his endeavors are spelled S-U-C-C-E-S-S (RIP)
Have you forgotten, Lonnie Taylor who came out of the “HOOD” is another testimony? He would become the first Black Chief of Staff for a White Congressman on Capitol Hill. He wrote a letter thanking me and the Hillcrest Saturday Program for his S-U-C-C-E-S-S.
While you were working behind a desk or somewhere else out of sight, I was on the front lines in this struggle to be free. My struggled started in 1960, my freshman year in college. I will remain in it until God calls me home.
I have been copied but never duplicated. This was a teachable lesson that needed to be recorded.
Be sure to share this BLOG with those who dislike me, but say, they still love me! Love definitely has nothing to do with it! Peace and blessings.
THE TRUTH: DALE HANSEN WAS VOTED THE NO. 1 SPORTSCASTER IN AMERICA USING MY INSIDE SPORTS FORMAT.
THE WASHINGTON POST HAS THE COPYRIGHTS TO INSIDE SPORTS (my wife Hattie’s original idea). They keep taking and we keep hating.
TRANSCRIPT / Harold this is Dale Hansen in Dallas. I lost your telephone number when you called the other day. I finally had to track through your notes and I finally found it. I am sorry I didn’t get back to you. Your stuff is fantastic to read about. Everything you have done makes my little bit a peeling off of White Privilege and rather insignificant, but I thank you for sharing this with me. I hope you get this message, Thank you, sir, thank you very much.
THE GREAT ONES: All did promos to promo Inside Sports, let me name just a few, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Jim Brown and Don King.
theoriginalinsidesports 