Sports & Youth

Sport has the power to bring people together and build leadership skills. Sport also encourages kids to live healthy and more actively lives. That is why Mary’s Court is dedicated to expanding and promoting athletic opportunities in low-income neighborhoods.

Sports & Youth Programs

The Peace League

The Peace League

In its third year, the Peace League is an annual community basketball league that brings together young men from different communities in Chicago and provides them a safe space to meet each other, learn leadership values through teamwork and work through their differences through sport.
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Marillac House

Windy City Hoops

Isiah Thomas in partnership with Mayor Emanuel started a fundraising campaign to launch the Windy City Hoops program in ten park districts, offering a safe haven to kids and families through sports.
Learn more at chicagoparkdistrict.com

Playin’ for Love

Isiah Thomas and Hollywood filmmaker Robert Townsend partnered up to direct and produce Playin’ for Love, a movie about a student-athlete, his coach and his mother. They partnered with the Overtown Youth Center and Miami-Dade County Public Schools to engage the local teens and teach them the art of filmmaking.
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Learn more from the United Teachers of Dade Florida

Watch Isiah Thomas discuss the film with School Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones

“Basketball has a way of bringing groups together, bringing people together and breaking down barriers. Just as sport has broken down racial barriers, we think sport has an opportunity to bring down gang barriers. Earning respect, having a positive reputation and being a valued member of a group or a team is partly the reason I’m where I am today; I was taught I could achieve these virtues by playing on a basketball team. Too many of our kids try to achieve them by being in a gang.”

– Isiah Thomas