For Camden Little League, solid leadership is where it starts

On the last day of the North Camden Little League's season, founder and president Bryan Morton was in constant motion. That morning, before the all-star games started, he hauled coolers to Pyne Poynt Park, set up bases and rolled out a massive charcoal grill and tent. When Morton's team took the field that afternoon, he grabbed the announcer's microphone to pump up the crowd, then darted between the coaches' barbecue and dugout, coaching batters and bantering with parents in lawn chairs.

"We need some hits today," he told one player's mother.

"I know, that's right!" she shot back.

To a player who had struck out and looked at Morton, lip trembling, Morton said sternly, "You looked great in practice. When you get up there, you can't get nervous."

Unbeknownst to many at Pyne Poynt Park on that hot August afternoon, the day marked the end of Morton's leadership of the North Camden Little League, the nonprofit he has built into one of the city's largest youth organizations.

"The reason we're setting up a succession plan is so that people see this was always about something bigger than me," Morton said recently. "We want to ensure there is always a path forward."

Morton, 44, a city native who returned home after a stint in prison for robbery and drugs, started the all-volunteer league in 2011 to combat Camden's persistent gang violence, and to get kids and parents off the streets for a few hours. It has grown from 100 players to close to 500, and has support from thousands of Camden residents, as well as businesses and government leaders.

The league has helped parents give their kids experiences they never had as children. Many coaches are people with troubled pasts who, like Morton, have found redemption in working with the league. Boys and girls have swung bats for the first time, high-fived teammates, and started seeing baseball as a path towards college and careers.

Morton's wife, Felisha Reyes-Morton, will now lead the group while Morton focuses on bringing baseball to all corners of the impoverished, nine-square-mile city.

"It's great that North Camden is where we are now," he said recently. "What's not great is that when I drive around places like South Camden I can spot fields with rusted chain-link fences and overgrown weeds, and blocks upon blocks of kids on their porches with no place to go. I look at that and it reminds me of where we were five years ago."

Sustained at first by individual donations and then corporate contributions, the league grew into a 501(c)3 nonprofit that has been the subject of national press coverage and an upcoming documentary. The presence of kids and coaches at North Camden's formerly drug-infested Pyne Poynt Park spurred county leaders to fund a $4 million upgrade last year.

All the while, Morton has been in charge of everything from managing the finances and ordering uniforms to stocking the concession stand and locking up the restrooms at the end of the night.

Morton, who will remain a coach next year, said he started out so grateful for volunteers that he didn't want to demand too much.

"Some have been spoiled by that," he said. "Others are seeking to do more. And it's time to ask for more.

Reyes-Morton, 26, who works in human resources for the Camden County Police Department and is a school board member, is also a league co-founder. Next year, she will create committees and delegate the tasks her husband struggled to hand off.

Morton's decision to step back also comes from an understanding that the league could be vulnerable if it rests entirely on his shoulders.

The league flourished in part due to Morton's persistence and strategic development of relationships with community members, government leaders, law enforcement and school officials. But if he falters one day, he said, or moves on, the organization must be able to function on its own.

That's why he is grooming people for leadership: longtime coach Julio Ruiz, girls' softball coaches Josie Rodriguez and Shirley Irizarry, and Argenis Calderon, a former player and 19-year-old college student who spent his summer coaching.

The recent history of the Cramer Hill Little League has served as a cautionary tale for Morton and North Camden Little League. Cramer Hill's league was once the pride of Camden, with more than 500 players and a T-ball team that played on the White House lawn before President George W. Bush in 2007.

Many credited its success to Pete Perez, who as president amassed enough community support to get the city to build a clubhouse at the league's Von Nieda Park.

Perez, who works two jobs, stepped down about two years ago when the stress became too much.

"We got so big we couldn't sustain it," he said last week. "And we couldn't keep up with the number of volunteers we needed."

In retrospect, Perez says he should have done more to prepare the league's leaders for the responsibilities of taking over. Instead, participation dwindled and the teams all but disappeared.

"For Bryan to sustain what he has spearheaded here, he has to mentor people and show them the way," Perez said.

This year Cramer Hill was taken in by the Salvation Army Kroc recreation center in East Camden, where it operates as a T-ball team. Kroc Recreation Manager Demetrius Marlowe hopes to revive it and get more kids on the facility's new fields, playing against other teams from Camden as well as surrounding areas.

"These kids are hungry to compete," he said. "Bryan has done a great job of championing baseball in North Camden, and maybe the time is right to really look at this from a citywide perspective."

Morton's plans include growing the North Camden league to 750 or 1,000 next year. He said Camden's Cooper's Ferry Partnership recently secured federal money to refurbish Dominick Andujar park, the North Camden T-ball field named for the child killed in 2013 when he defended his sister from a violent intruder. The fields where Dominick's sister plays with the girls' softball teams will be next, Morton said.

Cramer Hill's Von Nieda Park is getting a drainage system and new ballfields. Frank Moran, director of the Camden County Parks Department, said the work could be done next year.

Former Cramer Hill president Perez wants to see the Cramer Hill league thrive again. Occasionally he's in someone's house and notices one of the trophies they gave the kids.

"I've seen these kids as adults," he said. "A lot of them are doing positive things, a lot of them went to college, a lot of them are still playing baseball. I know we had an impact."

It was 8 p.m. before Morton walked off the field for the last time as president on that Saturday last month. Next year, he will be just another coach, with the tasks that made for 12-hour days divided among four people.

But his schedule is already filling up. He is talking with organizations such as Philadelphia's Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation and the 76ers, who are building a new training facility on the Camden waterfront.

Morton hopes that's just the beginning. His real goal is to create city teams for any sport imaginable: wrestling, flag football, cheerleading, lacrosse.

"Can you imagine?" Morton said with a laugh. "The Camden lacrosse team. Why not?"