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Backers of the Reggie Lewis Center can't agree who should run it, but do agree the former director got screwed

Donna Harris-Lewis speaks on future of Reggie Lewis Center

Reggie Lewis's widow, Donna Harris-Lewis, urges center remain part of RCC.

Correction: Tyler is not a co-sponsor of the independent-board bill as was originally posted.

For two hours, people with connections to the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center debated how to get it out of the mire it finds itself in, its longtime director out of a job and millions of dollars in promised renovations undone.

At a meeting called by new state Rep. Chynah Tyler (D-7th Suffolk), some people said the answer is a bill, co-sponsored by state Rep. Russell Holmes and state Senators Linda Dorcena-Forry and Mike Rush, to carve the center away from Roxbury Community College under a new, independent board of trustees. The college, they say, is slowly chipping away at the center - by withholding funds and using center space for things such as classrooms and giving college programs priority over track and community ones.

Others, however, said they don't want to risk the center losing its community focus and that it should stay part of the community college - but that the college administration should go.

The center, which opened in 1995, is the only public facility in the country dedicated to high-school track and field events, although it is currently considered part of Roxbury Community Center - some of whose sports teams play there. It also hosts other programs for seniors and for kids in the community, such as a summer camp.

And it has been roiled since the September dismissal of longtime center director Keith McDermott for reason RCC has never explained.

Mark Leszczyk, coach of the RCC women's basketball team, which practices at the Lewis center, says he and other RCC staffers received at least four e-mails from college President Valerie Roberson about McDermott that mentioned "suspected criminal activity" - but that he has yet to see any followups clearing McDermott's name after the state attorney general's office cleared him of any wrongdoing earlier this month.

"It upsets me quite a bit," he told about 100 people at Tyler's meeting at the center.

"It's very, very distressing to me what's gone on here," Shirley Shillingford, president of the Caribbean American Carnival Association, which has long suppoorted the center, agreed.

Members of a seniors group say that since McDermott left, they have had their regular sessions canceled at short notice. Former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, meanwhile, is still bitter about an incident last August in which she said Roberson herself ordered her granddaughter's camp group out of the facility.

Rick Kates, assistant executive director of the Massachusetts State Track Association, said only $1 million of a $4.7-million Patrick-administration grant to update the facility has been spent and that that means the stands along the track are unsafe, the heating system doesn't work right and the concrete outside the entrance poses a tripping hazard. And he said he does not understand why RCC felt it had to install solar panels in the center parking lot, forcing visitors and bus drivers to park along the street - which is why the center was built with a parking lot in the first place.

But what to do about all this?

Longtime RCC supporter Sadiki Kambon said the answer is keeping the center under RCC control - but fixing what's wrong with the college, starting with firing Roberson . To do anything else would mean the Roxbury community might lose even more say in the running of the center. "We want changes - we want this administration gone," he said, referring to Roberson. "To lose the Reggie Lewis [to an outside body] would be a big hurt to the community," he said. No college administrators attended the meeting, or, at least, none rose to defend themselves.

Kambon was joined by Reggie Lewis's widow, Donna Harris-Lewis, who said the college, for all its faults, remains a critical part of the Roxbury community and that all sides should try to work together to get the Lewis center righted. She worried what would happen to the community ties if the center were given over to an indepdendent board.

Others, however, said the college has so many problems that it should concentrate on fixing itself and let the people who really care about the Lewis center take control, through an independent board.

Angelina Camamacho said the malaise at the center is harming all sorts of programs, including those that could help reduce youth violence. She said an independent board could still include an RCC representative.

Another resident said the current situation is "kind of like a bad marriage" and that both sides need out.

Tyler said she will hold additional meetings on the Reggie Lewis situation.

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Comments

''millions of dollars in promised renovations undone.''
Where's the money ?

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The state put the work out to bid last year, but the bids all came in high, apparently.

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I think most Bostonians would be impressed over how far and wide high-schoolers come to visit this venue and race.

For those that visit you are definitely welcome, but please don't call us the ghetto.

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Not to mention the world and national records that have been set there regularly at the NB Indoor Grand Prix

http://www.nbindoorgrandprix.com/meet-info/records/

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Nice to see Sadiki doing something other than trying to get the Globe to print some more of his porn collection.

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the guardian at the gate?

RIP reggie lewis

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At the meeting Chynah Tyler read a letter from the college administration. Among the claims in the letter, it said that there had been no disruptions to services since Keith McDermott had been let go. But both the "Sensational Seniors" and the RCC track coach indicated that the Reggie Lewis facility had not been available to their programs. Instead, programs were cancelled at the last minute, practice was scheduled at inconvenient times and Reggie Lewis was closed by RCC because of a malfunctioning elevator in a different building. The letter also referred to continuing irregularities raised by a sports regulating group, which sounded like innuendo meant to criticize the previous director. But the attorney general has already issued a report clearing the Reggie Lewis Director. Sadly, it makes it look like the only way to move forward in deciding who should operate the Reggie Lewis Track Center is to support the creation of a new independent board. A couple of speakers said that Roxbury Community College should resolve the problems at the college first and referred to the Reggie Lewis Center as a gem that should be left to shine.

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When I ran track at a Boston high school in the 1960s, there was talk about building a 'schoolboy track' facility. Good thing we didn't hold our breaths. So when something finally gets done, it's not a citywide track facility, it's a 'community' center. For this community, and not anyone else. And somehow, it needed basketball courts. And needed to be named after a basketball player. And needed to be tied at the hip to a community college that has gone through scandals like salt peanuts in a barroom.

Regarding Sadiki Kambon: the last time I remember hearing from him, he was screaming 'pig-dog' at Raybo Flynn at one of Ray's 'community meetings.' . Every circus needs a clown - thanks for the memories, Sadiki.

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The center IS a "schoolboy" track (well, how about we just call it a "high-school" track, given this is the 21st century at all). It is also large enough to support other uses without interfering with the track and field, at least as long as RCC isn't taking over the space for class registration or whatever.

In fact, one of the track coaches who spoke last night (might have been Kates, who I quoted, but I'm typing this without my notes in front of me) said the last thing he wanted to do was disrupt any of the programs that serve the seniors.

The track people and the "community" people have had their differences in the past, but right now they're united in just trying to keep the center going in the face of, at best, benign neglect by the college.

One of the options that had been floated, at least until last week, was to hand over the center to another college, like, say, UMass Boston or Northeastern. That did not seem to go over well with anybody last night.

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You seem disconnected enough to not realize this is considered one of the best indoor tracks in the country. Nike has regularly held their Indoor Nationals for high schoolers there and USATF has held their Indoor Nationals for professional athletes there.

This track is used for meets by people all over the city, state, country, and, at least once a year, the world.

It is a gem and more than exceeds what they discussed when you were in high school.

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What ever happened to the White Stadium sports emporium?

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If so thats a bigger insult to his legacy than this backroom politics fiasco.

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no marker indicating he is even there. squabble

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and woke the city up to college basketball. He then carried the injury plagued Celtics keeping them competitive and never patting himself on the back. Unsung and under appreciated.

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By neglect or by design?

Maybe his family doesn't want a marker.

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I think his mother wanted to bury him in Baltimore and there was a dispute with his widow. not really sure why there isn't something to acknowledge him. I met him several times when he was at northeastern and Celtics. i actually spoke to him at Brandeis during the Celtics rookie camp earlier in the summer before his death. he said he was eager to play again and he had his very young son Reggie Jr sitting on his lap. about two weeks later he was gone.

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he represented more than a patch of grass.

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Tito Jackson after he loses the Mayor's Race!

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