Group transforms courts into Diadema and watches basketball grow

In 1990, six young people were murdered by “justiceiros” (extermination groups) in the Campanário neighborhood, on the outskirts of Diadema, as they were returning from a bachelor party.

Their names —Kiko, Alexandre, Lano, Edielson, Marcelo and André— are the name of Kaleman Square, inaugurated in the region years later to honor the dead and which quickly became one of the main basketball spots in the city.

No wonder Kaleman’s court was one of those chosen to receive the renovation of On Fire, a newly created group that organizes events of the sport and has made improvements in several public places in the city.

The idea came when Fernando Andrade, Fernando OnFire, and Alexandre Silva, Vampy, decided to do a small street basketball championship, in October 2020.

The event, even without any publicity, brought together many more people than they imagined.

“One day he and I [Vampy], coming back from a split [jogo de basquete], inside the car, we thought: ‘Let’s try to renovate the blocks?’ The idea started out unpretentious, we never expected to be published in the newspaper”, says Fernando, who is a lawyer.

The two went in search of support from the city hall and private companies. They teamed up with other basketball acquaintances from Diadema and started the project.

“The population is depoliticized. If there is no front line that organizes and communicates with politics, it won’t work. And the quality of the courts has always been a lack for the entire basketball world in Diadema, of all generations” , completes Fernando.

A sheet he visited the four blocks that On Fire has already renovated: Kaleman, Passo Parque, União and JV. Senna’s should be renovated this year.

The first to receive new colors, in May, was located in Jardim União, on the outskirts of Diadema. It is next to a culture house, a school circus, an indoor soccer field and a skate park.

the afternoon that the sheet visited it, at least 15 boys around 10 years old played basketball there. There is a unanimous feeling that the reforms have brought more young people to the sport.

“You can see if the guy is a basketball player or not because of his clothing and style. That one, for example, is wearing jeans and a polo shirt. He’s not a basketball player, but he’s getting interested and in the future he will be”, he analyzes Fernando, watching the scene.

He continues, with his plans for the future: “Here we have to have our first little school, look at how many kids don’t even have tennis to play, they’re wearing flip-flops”.

The remodeled courts, group members say, help to break down prejudice against basketball and reduce the resistance that many parents have to letting their children go outside to play.

The inclusion of 3-on-3 basketball (which grew out of street basketball) in the Olympics helps to spread the word. “Did you notice how many kids are playing? It wasn’t like that, these kids didn’t exist here in Diadema! Imagine in a few years…”, says Vampy.

On Senna’s court (which honors Ayrton Senna), he remembers his own childhood. He says he lived in the area and started playing basketball at the age of 16. “We made a block on the street. We painted the street, drilled the asphalt close to the guide and raised a table. Then we started to play.”

He played until the 2000s, including in the famous races at Parque do Passo. They even gathered teams from Ibirapuera Park, but they disappeared due to the years in which the court was not well maintained.

Vampy has been away from the sport for some time, but has reconnected in recent years because of her son, Daniel.

With no money to pay for classes in other sports, the father decided to go back to doing what he had always done since childhood: playing basketball in the street, this time with his son, who is at the base of the city’s team.

“The goal is to deliver something to these kids that I didn’t have as a child,” he says.

Another concern of the group is to integrate basketball with culture. In this sense, the performance of Jean B, son of Nelson Triunfo, precursor of hip-hop and breaking in Brazil, is important.

He became a professional basketball player and played for São Paulo. Today, he is also director of the Casa do Hip Hop in Diadema and helps, for example, bring DJs and breaking dancers to On Fire events.

“Since again I work with production, being Nelsão’s son [Triunfo], and I decided to give them some strength. Then there was a force here, a force there and I got involved with the group. And I made this bridge with hip-hop, which has everything to do with street basketball,” he says.

One of the results of this dialogue with other areas is seen on the JV court. There, with the help of artist Pixote Mushi, the renovation included a partnership with graffiti artists and graffiti artists to work on the surrounding walls.

Now they also want to color an alley that is on the side to create the “beco do baska”, a game with the Beco do Batman, a point in Vila Madalena, in São Paulo.

The JV court was where the first championship organized by the group took place, the one still undisclosed and before the renovations, in October 2020.

A year later, on November 7, the group organized a new championship there, with more than 600 people in attendance, food and drink sales by city merchants, burial competitions, musical performances, and support from sponsors such as Converse and Budweiser.

Before the renovations, the court was known as the “beggar’s court”, due to the number of homeless people it housed.

“Today, homeless people still live here, but now they’ve also organized themselves, you can see that there’s no more garbage left lying around, you can see that they pack and keep things behind the tree [ao lado da quadra]”, says Rogê, also a member of On Fire. “They see the zeal with the court, the kids taking care of it, and they end up organizing themselves too, in the way they can.”

On Fire also makes solidarity matches to collect food and clothing. “It’s not a mean beggar, it’s a human being.”