‘There he is! There he is!’ they cried, spotting on television the only corn-rowed Orangeman not named Carmelo Anthony. The 50 or so kids hooted and hollered proudly because Tyrone Albright was, after all, once one of them.

‘Everybody’s proud of him,’ 16-year-old Joey Gaines said. ‘He’s from The Club.’

The Club. A spot of hope on a street pot-holed by despair. An oasis that beckons kids like Gaines, offering them a haven from their unforgiving lives. A club whose members chose their role models carefully, because, on these streets on Syracuse’s west side, there are far more villains than heroes.

They found a hero in Albright, a 27-year-old Syracuse men’s basketball walk-on whose cameo during halftime of the Final Four game against Texas has become a symbol of triumph for kids of the Boys and Girls Club. The orange glow from the SU men’s basketball national championship has reached this often-ignored city district.

Albright, who still lives within blocks of The Club, identifies with its members like few can. Like so many of the The Club’s kids, Albright grew up in a single-parent home. At age 18, he moved out and took a job at Kentucky Fried Chicken, making barely enough to pay for his one-bedroom apartment.

Having frequented The Club as a kid, Albright knew its management. After less than a year, management set him up with a job that paid better than his KFC position.

That’s when Albright met Gaines, then a sixth-grader with a situation similar to Albright’s. Gaines, too, comes from a single-parent home, living with his mom and two older brothers, one 18, the other 28. With his ovular face and corn rows, Gaines even looks like Albright.

Like it did for Albright, The Club gives Gaines a chance to take five from his life.

‘It’s a very difficult neighborhood to grow up in,’ Albright said. ‘No matter how good a kid you are, you have to deal with a lot of pressures on those streets.’

‘It’s a lot of pressure,’ Gaines said. ‘The gangs put a lot of pressure on you.’

So on any given day, about 100 kids flee to The Club. It’s a nondescript building on Shonnard Street, across from a strip of run-down houses and foreboding parking lots. Inside, kids work in the computer lab, hoop on the basketball court or hang out in the teen room.

But The Club symbolizes so much more than its humble appearance suggests. On the sometimes-lawless streets, it’s a signpost of respect and authority.

‘Sometimes, I’ll see something starting on the corner,’ said Chris Jones, one of The Club’s three full-time employees. ‘I’ll walk over by the door, and I’ll just sort of stand there. They respect The Club. I’ll hear them say, ‘Not here, not in front of The Club. Do it somewhere else.’ ‘

For The Club’s members, there’s nowhere else to go. The Club is a way out.

That’s how it was for Albright, who moved on to Onondaga Community College before joining Syracuse this season. Albright appeared in just seven games for a total of 20 minutes. He never played in the NCAA Tournament, but The Club’s kids snapped to attention every time the television camera panned the SU bench.

At The Club, Syracuse basketball is worshiped. For the Final Four, kids packed the blue-walled teen room, filling its myriad chairs, three couches and one table.

‘It was common ground for them,’ Jones said. ‘There’s a rising gang problem here. Sometimes there can be a lot of tension. But when the game was on, they were all cheering and high-fiving.

“It was a chance for us to get to know some of the kids around here, too. Some of the kids involved in the gangs, we don’t often get them in here to work with them.’

‘Everybody was yelling, yelling, yelling,’ Gaines said, ‘especially when (Hakim) Warrick blocked that ball. It was pretty packed, everyone was yelling, looking at the TV. Every time we saw (Albright), we started yelling, ‘It’s Tyrone!’ ‘

Albright is not their only hero. Some of the kids pass Albright’s Slocum Street apartment on their way to The Club. They always check to see if Anthony’s green Chrysler is parked out front.

‘We know the car,’ Gaines said. ‘It’s the green thing.’

Anthony and the Orangemen stand for something all of these kids want, and sadly, something they may not all get — a chance.

Gaines has one. If he pulls an 85 average in high school — he has an 87 now — he’ll receive a scholarship that will give him enough financial aid to attend SU. He also recently won The Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year Award for Syracuse, and he’ll compete for the New York State award June 1-3 in Albany.

Now, Gaines helps support his family by working 20 hours a week aiding the mentally ill. Next school year, he’ll play varsity basketball and football at Fowler High.

‘People in school try to pressure me to skip school and stuff like that,’ Gaines said. ‘Some of my friends want me to smoke. It’s hard. I’ll be hanging around them most of the time, but I don’t do it. I don’t skip school either.’

Two weeks ago, Gaines and a few others from The Club gathered at Albright’s apartment to watch his personal videos from the Final Four. They got a behind-the-scenes look at the Orangemen, because Albright carried his video camera through the SU team hotel.

Gaines will see Albright again soon, because Albright told Gaines to ‘knock on my door’ before the Youth of the Year award ceremony. Albright and Jones have worked to organize an event in which the Orangemen can hang out with The Club’s kids for a while. It hasn’t happened yet, but no one’s giving up. Albright wouldn’t accept that.

‘He taught me not to give up on anything,’ Gaines said. ‘I look at his life kind of like mine. You can’t give up.”

Published on April 27, 2003 at 12:00 pm