Next week, some of Greenport’s finest young basketball players will be facing off in a charity showdown against members of the Southold Police Deptartment at Greenport High School.
The First Annual Cops and Community Basketball Game starts at 6 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 24. Tickets — $12 for adults; $6 for children — can be purchased at givebutter.com.
This month’s game is an outgrowth of a village tradition: a summer basketball tournament whose roots stretch back to the early 1990s, when it was known as Joanne “JoJo” Jackson’s tournament and was the highlight of the summer for many local kids. At its peak, the old tournament featured cheerleaders in outfits hand-sewn by local seamstresses and for a while there was even a fashion show.
The revived summer tournament, now known as the North Fork Kid Connect basketball tournament, has been held each summer since 2021. Last summer’s tournament for the first time featured a cops versus community players as the day’s finale.
The tournament, which is free to local children, also featured a DJ, a grill master and a half-time show performed by the North Fork Dance Company.
Next week’s event is a fundraiser for NOFO Kids Connnect Inc., a non-profit created last year to fund the annual summer tournament. The Southold PBA is also a sponsor of Friday night’s game.
“I was just talking with some of the basketball players from the community team last night, and they are so excited,” said Candace Hall, one of the organizers of the summer tournament and next week’s game.
Ms. Hall said the ball court showdown last summer between local teens and police was a hit with everyone involved, and prompted organizers — including herself, Destiny Salter and Southold Police Officer Ryan Creighton — to break out the police game into its own event.
“Everybody enjoyed it,” Mr. Creighton said. “It was good time.”
Ms. Hall, whose family has lived in Greenport for generations, said the game is a fun and valuable way to strengthen bonds between the community and the police force.
She said that there is a strong connection between longtime Greenport residents, particularly in the Black community, and Southold police — and that events like this reinforce that bond.
“I think we’re blessed to be a model for relationships [between] the police deptartment and the community, and that’s been going on for a long time here,” she said. “Now, it’s not always sunshine and rainbows, but … we know our cops, which is, I think, the way it should be. We know these people because they grew up here. We have respect for them.”
She said it’s also an important opportunity for local police.
“When they’re called somewhere, they are not always seeing an ideal moment in someone’s life,” Ms. Hall said. “Good people don’t always make good choices, and they are seeing people in a very vulnerable place. And I think it’s really beautiful if they know these people and can see that this is a bad moment, not a bad person.”
Mr. Creighton agreed, saying he likes the games because of “the fact that you get to see a different side of people.” He said it’s important for residents to know that “we’re involved in the community in different ways other than just patrolling and policing.”
Mr. Creighton hadn’t finalized his lineup by late last week, but said that in addition to fellow cops, his team will include two young players he coaches: Julian and Jaxan Swann. Officers Steve Ficner and Dan Fedun played for the police in July.
In 2014, the Third St. court was renovated and renamed the “Third St. Memorial Basketball Court,” in honor of four village residents who had died young in separate incidents but shared a love for the court, which sits between Center Street and and North Street.