Most stories you come across about this part of North Philadelphia are about crime. A shooting on the ‘x-hundred’ block of something. A young man dead on the 11 o’clock news. A crying neighbor on a porch. A statement from a weary detective. An anchor in a suit and tie speaking in grave tones.

And it’s true. There is a lot of crime in the neighborhoods that surround Hank Gathers. The fear of gun violence and death is like a constant backdrop.

It’s hard to find someone in the neighborhood who doesn’t bring it up.

“There’s always a lot of trouble on Diamond Street. When I be in my room, I can hear the sirens and stuff. Somebody else got shot or something. It’s always something,” Bionna, 16. “Lot of shootings for no reason. Too many people dying and I don’t want to be one of them,” Stephon, 15. “I hate people dying, man. There’s a lot of people dying in my ‘hood,” Shawn, 15. “I’m worried if I’m going to make it or not — make it past 20, 21. It’s rough out here, man. I’ve seen a lot of good people turn into bad people,” Daishon, 15. “Really happy to see 23 the way so many people are dying nowadays…I could have been at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Davonne Glover, 23.

But as real as these fears are, and as much as shootings drive headlines, this isn’t the whole picture.

This story is about those other moments, about the people still here after the breaking news van drives away.

***

The first time we met Shawn, on the last day of school, we could tell he was a leader.

He was with a group of other kids on the outdoor basketball courts who asked why we were there. Most of the kids at Gathers are black, and a couple of 30-something-year-old white guys with microphones stick out.

We told them we were doing a story on what happens after the last day of school.

“We playing ball. Fucking bitches. Getting money,” said one of the teens.

Shawn stepped in to wave away the bravado.

“We’re not,” he said. “Sir, we’re not.”

Shawn lives with his mom and three siblings at Raymond Rosen Manor, a low-rise public housing complex a block from the rec center. He’s the oldest kid in the family, and has the presence of someone who’s accepted the idea that he’s responsible for more than just himself.

On the basketball court it can come across as confidence, maybe even cockiness.

“I can tell I can beat you,” he scoffed. “I can tell by the way you walk. You gotta have a little walk when you play ball.”

Shawn is lean and agile with a halo of puffy hair. He plays the game with focus and intensity, like he knows the stakes are higher than the outcome of any one game.

Talk to him off court, and there’s something deeper, more tender. He has the instincts of a protector, someone who, without hesitation, is there for friends and family.

Any time we interviewed one of his close friends, Shawn made sure he was there to chaperone.

“I want to listen to you,” he said as we interviewed his friend, Greg. “I don’t want you saying nothing dumb.”

Shawn and Greg call each other brothers.

“We’re not literally brothers,” said Greg. “We do what brothers do, though. Like, I’m not going to let nobody say nothing to him wrong.”

“We both do the same things,” said Shawn. “He’s actually smart. You wouldn’t think he’s smart, but he’s smart.”

“He’s a good person to hang around. He’s a positive person,” said Greg. “He’s not like everybody, trying to hang on the corner. He wants to play ball and he’s not going to let anybody stop him.”

When you talk to Shawn about motivation, it all comes back to his mom.

“I wouldn’t play ball if it wasn’t for my mom. There wouldn’t be no point. I just want to leave — get my mom out the ‘hood,” said Shawn. “[Otherwise], I probably would be out here doing what everybody else does. I’d probably be a bad little kid. Drunk. In these streets. Probably sell drugs when I get older and all that. But I wouldn’t play ball. There would be no point.”

Shawn’s mom, Shanika, had her son when she was 15, Shawn’s age now.

“I’ve never doubted my son,” she said. “I’m glad I had him, because he taught me to mature myself as a young lady. So, if it wasn’t for him, lord knows where I would be.”

Shanika works as a support staffer in Philly public schools, and is training to become a certified nursing assistant. She dreams of moving to Virginia, but hopes a new gig will allow her at least to afford rent outside the projects — maybe Northeast Philadelphia.

“I put a roof over my kids’ head. They’re well fed. They have clean clothes on their body,” she said. “So at the end of the day, my kids are all that matter — nothing else, you know? I feel like I laid down, opened my legs and had those kids. I got to take care of them.”

Shawn’s dad was in jail for much of his life. He’s out now, but not in the picture.

“Every child needs their father in their life,” said Shanika, “but sometimes you can’t make a man be a man.”

Shawn met with his dad recently, but has no plans to continue.

“I just don’t need the man. I didn’t need him my whole life,” said Shawn. “He’s going to need me.”

Shanika hopes her son can learn from her work ethic.

“I just want him to get out of the neighborhood and do bigger and better. I want him to go to college,” she said. “I want him to be big and do better.”

***

Like many of his friends, Shawn thinks basketball could be the ticket out. And as unlikely as that may seem on a pure statistical basis, at the Hank Gathers Rec Center, it’s not completely out of the question.

Kyle Lowry. Marcus and Markieff Morris. Dawn Staley. Hank Gathers.

Those are some big names in the world of basketball.

Lowry is an NBA All-Star who just won a championship with the Toronto Raptors.

The Morris twins are league veterans.

Dawn Staley is a three time Olympic gold medalist on the women’s team and an NCAA champion coach.

Hank Gathers, the rec center’s namesake, was a top prospect who died suddenly on the court of a heart condition in college in 1990.

All of them grew up here playing on these same courts where Shawn and his friends play.

And to this day, the rec center has one of the most well-known basketball programs in the city.

“Hank Gathers — it’s one of the greatest recs we have,” Davonne Glover, 23. “This is the mecca,” George Patterson. “This is where everybody meets in the middle,” Curtis Pannell, 28 “If you think you’ve got game, you gotta go through the Hank center,” Mark. “I didn’t have role models growing up. But playing basketball, a lot of coaches changed my life at Hank Gathers,” Abdul King, 25. “I wouldn’t want to play or grow up nowhere else than around this gym right here,” Eddie “Bisil” Savage, 49.

***

There’s an informal check-in system at Gathers.

Kids walk in the double doors, up a short flight of stairs. They go halfway through a small entry area with concrete walls — covered in every type of sports poster imaginable. Turn right into a carpeted room and the TV is almost always blaring: CNN. Law and Order. Local news.

There, kids find Jimmy Richardson and George Major in a pair of ragged armchairs.

The ritual is as simple as it is charming.

The kids walk up, shake hands. For younger kids, it’s a traditional handshake. Older kids, more of a slap and clasp.

It’s like the Gathers’ version of morning attendance. Walk in. Shake hands.

It’s a little gesture that tells you a lot about the rec center. The world outside may be unpredictable. But not here. In here, there is order.

“It’s a different society up here,” said George Major. “Everything’s different up here. ‘Cause it’s rules in here.”

Major sports a shaved head and bushy, graying beard. His eyes — wide and intense — give his gruff lectures extra weight.

Like a lot of people around here, Major’s story intersects with the world of basketball. He helped raise Marcus and Markieff Morris.

But Major likes to talk about life before the NBA twins, when he was growing up in this neighborhood. He was one of 13 kids, he says, born to a single mother.

“Sometimes I would come in the house — wasn’t no food at the table,” he said. “And I would go back outside and take something.”