"I actually, um, I just skimmed through it," Marquis Young says with a laugh. "And when I saw my name, I'll read that page." The book he’s been flipping through is "Hope: A School, A Team, A Dream." It’s the account of the 2012 season of the Hope High School boys’ basketball team, for which Marquis played. We’re sitting in the Hope High gym in Providence, Rhode Island, with, among others, the book’s author, longtime Providence Journal writer Bill Reynolds. 'It Was Like A Bad Gym Class' "The first couple days of practice I was horrified," Reynolds says. "You had kids with different colored uniforms, different colored shirts, sneakers. It was like a bad gym class. And you had coaches trying to impose a structure on something that at the time was unstructurable, if that's a term."

It was chaos half of the time in the beginning until we all got together and everybody was on the same page. Wayne Clements

"Was it like a bad gym class at the beginning?" I ask Wayne Clements, the 2012 team’s point guard. "Is that what it felt like to you?" "Yes," he says. "It was chaos half of the time in the beginning, until we all got together and everybody was on the same page," he says. "The first time I met Wayne," Reynolds says, "was over here in the bleachers. And he wasn't playing. And I said, 'What happened to you?' And he says, 'Well, I broke my wrist.' And I said, 'How?' He said, 'There was a big girl fight down the street at Brown. And we were running from the cops, and I jumped over a fence, and I broke my wrist.'" "Yeah, that's true — my elbow, actually," Clements says. "Excuse me," Reynolds says. 'Your Heart Goes Out For These Kids' Injuries happen, and sometimes they happen when you’re running away from the police. Homelessness happens, too, and so does hunger. At one point during the 2012 season, Reynolds learned that one of the Hope High players hadn’t eaten all day, and wasn’t likely to eat before the game, unless one of his teammates had a leftover candy bar. "These kids go through things that most people have no clue," Reynolds says. "They do it on a daily basis. And this is not just Hope High School here. This is every inner-city school in Providence. This is every inner-city school in America. And this is the reality of it. They come into a difficult environment every day. It's not a neighborhood school. They have to travel from other parts of the city to get here. They come back after games, and there are no cars here. They go home to sometimes chaotic situations. Everything here is difficult. So you can't be around it for too long without realizing that your heart goes out to these kids." "You know, what he was saying, it is true," says Malieke Young, a consistent scoring threat on the 2012 team. "We do go through some things that some people wouldn't experience, but, how he just described it, when I was in high school going through it, I didn't see it as that. I seen it as, I'm getting a chance to play basketball, and that's what I love. That was enough for me. Taking the bus didn't really matter. I was getting here. Playing with my friends, with my brother. You know, I've known Wayne for 10 years. So that was a real blessing. My family came here. It was actually the school I wanted to go to since I was in like sixth grade. I wanted to go to Hope." Malieke Young is not unusual in that respect. Hope High School, built in 1936 and looking its age, has a proud basketball history. There are championship banners on the walls of the old gym. But according to head coach Dave Nyblom, who's been at Hope for over two decades, the job requires sensitivity to a lot more than the pick-and-roll and the zone defense.

These kids go through things that most people have no clue. They do it on a daily basis. And this is not just Hope High School here. This is every inner city school in Providence. This is every inner-city school in America. Bill Reynolds