Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast more than two years ago, but the area is far from fixed. In addition to debris in the streets and still-ruined houses, there is also a legal backlog.
“Legally, it’s a hot-bed,” said University student Jumane Redway, who is currently pursuing both a law degree and an master’s in business administration. “There are all sorts of issues with government agencies, private claims, insurance.”
Three years ago, Redway founded the Legal Ballers Association, a basketball league composed of University law students. Saturday evening, LBA will play its inaugural Oregon Law Rivalry Game, a charity game against law students from Portland’s Lewis & Clark College. All proceeds will go to the Student Hurricane Network.
“It’s basically a national network of law students,” said Paul Tassin, who heads the University’s SHN chapter. “We coordinate volunteer work in systems of recovery after the 2005 hurricanes.”
Since December 2005, SHN has been sending students not only to areas directly affected by the hurricanes – New Orleans and Pensacola, Fla., for example – but also to places with high populations of evacuees, such as Dallas, Houston and Memphis, Tenn.
A native of New Orleans, Tassin has been back home four times to assist in things like civil rights litigation and helping community organizations put together rebuilding plans. University SHN students will be going to Louisiana again over winter break.
“I think it’s absolutely fantastic,” Tassin said of LBA’s help. “We’re not like an established organization with lots of funds. We travel on our own dime.”
“I’m pretty optimistic it’s going to do us a lot of financial good this year,” he added.
Since its inception, LBA has grown exponentially. What started as a small group of guys playing basketball on Tuesday and Thursday mornings became a six-team league by the end of the first year. The next year, there were nine teams. Currently, there are 12 coed teams, each with a legal play-on-words name, such as HoopLaw, Amici Curiae and Mos’ Convicted.
In addition to the opportunity to exercise and socialize while honing leadership skills, LBA aims to be a humanitarian group.
“I kind of patterned it after the NBA. Sports are a great resource to help people,” explained Redway, who feels people are more likely to donate money at a fun event, as opposed to in an envelope.
Redway developed the idea for the event with his friend, Damien Hall, who founded a law school basketball team at Lewis & Clark College. Though Lewis & Clark’s Finest is just one team, they often play with Portland’s Lawyers League.
“I thought it’d be a good thing to do, get a rivalry going, help a good cause, et cetera,” Hall said. “This is our first game for charity; it’s a good feeling, giving me a little more reason to make the trek a couple of hours down to Eugene.”
Some of LBA’s previous philanthropic endeavors include Thanksgiving baskets and canned food drives, and raising money for Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
This year, Redway made the league more formal and organized, with 40 percent of each player’s league dues going to charity.
The league strives to balance their giving between global and local groups. Their dues donations will likely go toward Nuestro Lugar – a downtown center for at-risk youths, the name of which is Spanish for “Our Place” – and the Nothing But Nets campaign.
“NBN provides malaria nets to communities that are greatly affected in Africa,” Redway explained.
Malaria nets, also known as bed nets, are treated with insecticide and hung around people’s beds to keep them from being bitten by disease-carrying mosquitoes at night.
“Infant mortality goes up, life expectancy goes up – all with malaria nets,” Redway added.
In addition, for every league loss up until Thursday, all teams must donate that many cans to LBA’s canned food drive. The can drive will be incorporated into the Oregon Law Rivalry Game. Spectators can bring canned goods in lieu of making the suggested donation.
Redway and Hall hope their charity basketball game becomes a tradition, one in which they’re open to including other schools.
“Willamette has the only other law school in Oregon, but if they want to get in on it, all the more money for charity,” Hall said.
Redway said the game is a great way to give to those who are less fortunate.
“Sports is such a tremendous tool to be a generator of resources and that’s what this league is all about,” he said. “We have so many resources on this planet, we have to share. We don’t have these resources to hoard them. It’s up to us to drive them in the right ways.”
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