Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

John Wooden, Former Coach, UCLA 10 National Championships

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I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost more than 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot - and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life...

And that is why I succeed.

Michael Jordan, Basketball Champion

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You've got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing.

Arthur Ashe

The world we have created is a product of our thinking.
It cannot be changed without changing our thinking. -- Albert Einstein

How will you ever know if you can paint that picture, run that business, sell that vacuum cleaner, earn that degree, hold that office, make that speech, win that game, marry that girl, write that book, bake that souffle, build that house - unless you try it! -- Richard M. DeVos

"When just starting out on a new journey it's only natural to feel vulnerable. After all, it may seem that you have much to lose. But may I remind you that never again, at any other point in the same journey, will you have so much to gain." -- Mike Dooley

Short History of the C.O.E. Pops/Moms Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center

High School Basketball League

C.O.E. Pops/Moms began in the summer of 1983 in the wake of a gang slaying not far from the current home of the league. Stunned by the brutality of the incident, local parents banded together to reduce neighborhood violence.

They modeled themselves along the community structure of an earlier era in the Yoruba region of West Africa where elders would join together to assure the welfare of all young people, not just of their own children.

Named Council of Elders Pops and Moms, the new group has been long known by its acronym of C.O.E. Pops and Moms.

By 1985, C.O.E. Pops had joined with Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center to conduct what has become its biggest activity: a winter basketball program for high school students. Sometimes mistaken as an "upper grade FAAM," the league in fact has no connection with (although a great deal of admiration) for FAAM's 6^th to 8^th grade program.

Coached entirely by volunteers, the program now is in its 27th season.  The league's cycle is settled: registration in November and December; initial practices in January; games starting late January; and playoffs during March.

The league is clear about its purpose: to acknowledge and uphold the God-given dignity of each player; to promote the Golden Rule, respect, fairness and like venerable values; to guide players to the next stage of their development; and to provide an exciting, attractive setting for doing these things.

The league has a great unconcealed love for the young men and women given to its care. It knows that without them and their affection, there would be no league at all.