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In April 2017, Dave Bing brought 18 high-school juniors to his hometown of Washington D.C. Through the Bing Youth Institute (BYI) — Bing’s nonprofit that supports the academic, behavioral and social wellness of underprivileged young Black men in Detroit, Michigan — it was the first time Bing brought a group outside of the city.

Sixteen of them — aside from a BYI trip to Cedar Point Amusement Park in Ohio — had never left Detroit. Seventeen of them had never been on an airplane. And a BYI survey revealed only three of them thought they were college bound, the motivation for Bing’s efforts.

Some of the students were hesitant to go. They didn’t have luggage because they never traveled. So, Bing got them all Samsonite carry-on suitcases and ordered matching BYI pullovers for the trip to the nation’s capital.

“He wanted to eliminate the barrier of kids not feeling the same because some kids come from a more disadvantaged environment,” said David Greenwood, a mentor in BYI who traveled on the trip.

Bing’s life has revolved around changing the path forward for Detroit youth through mentoring. Being a “transcendent” Syracuse basketball player, according to Jim Boeheim, a top 50 NBA player, a successful businessman and the Mayor of Detroit is just the foundation for his latest endeavor in BYI, which was “decades in the making,” Greenwood said.

Approaching the nonprofit’s 10-year anniversary, BYI’s 1-on-1 mentorship model encapsulates his addition to Syracuse’s Ring of Honor Saturday.

“He’d been mentoring all his life in an informal way, but decided that he wanted to really kind of help young men in kind of a more formal way,” said Bob Warfield, Chief Operating Officer for BYI and former Chief Communications Officer for Bing’s mayoralty.

Dave Bing waves to the JMA Wireless Dome crowd after being inducted into the Syracuse Ring of Honor during halftime of an SU men’s basketball game against NC State on Jan. 27. Nick Luttrell | Staff Photographer

After finishing a near five-year term, which both Greenwood and Warfield credit for the turnaround of the city, Bing wanted to continue to help others, Warfield said.

Those 18 students on the trip were the first class of mentees within the BYI. They had joined the initiative in 2014. And though only three of them initially thought they were qualified for university, 16 of the 18 later enrolled in colleges such as the University of Michigan, Michigan State and Alabama State, Warfield said.

The “light bulbs” turned on in Washington, Greenwood said. The trip featured tours of Howard University and Morgan State, both HBCUs, which allowed the students to see that college was attainable for people similar to them. Greenwood said they had never stepped foot on a college campus until then.

It also featured tourist visits to the White House and the Capitol, highlighted by a VIP experience in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Five-star hotel stays, accompanied with multi-course meals at five-star restaurants, created an experience the 18 had never enjoyed. In 2018, the BYI repeated the trip.

“All of these kids got a chance to gain access and opportunity that they had never had the opportunity before,” Greenwood said. “They got a chance to see Dave in a way that they didn’t know him.”

The purpose wasn’t to pamper the boys. Rather, Warfield said Bing wanted to “normalize” where they were, showing the students that higher education and social lifestyles are attainable.

All of the students were part of BYI’s 1-on-1 mentoring program called BINGO — Boys Inspired through Nurturing, Growth and Opportunities — named after how the crowd would yell “BINGO” when Bing made a jumpshot in his NBA career.

When Bing and Warfield launched the initiative in 2014, they spent 3-to-4 months researching, Warfield said. They often spent time in Bing’s Cadillac Escalade, dubbed the “mobile office,” discussing his vision.

“I am so pleased to know that we have impacted the lives of several 100 young men in the city of Detroit,” Bing said.

Individual mentoring was “extraordinarily important,” Warfield said, adding that Bing didn’t feel anything else was effective. Mentees in the program came from single-parent homes, where the mother or grandmother is the head of the household. They also had to be 2.0 students academically, as Warfield said research estimated that 60 to 70 percent of Black men are average on a GPA scale.

Research showed that ninth grade had the largest dropout rate, Warfield said, so Bing wanted to start mentoring students at a younger age. They targeted seventh to ninth grade students to begin, and stayed with them through their high school career.

Since the program’s inception, over 300 boys have gone through with a 100 percent graduation rate, Warfield and Bing said. Mentees are referenced to BYI through their schools.

“Most of them had literally no man in their life,” Warfield said. “That’s what BINGO was about.”

The requirements were a two-way street. For mentors, they go through a background check, an application and interview process. Mentors are also typically married, have their own families and are mid-level professionals. Before becoming a BYI mentor, Greenwood recently finished up a 28-year career in the fire service and one year as a teacher and assistant basketball coach at a local high school. Becoming a mentor was a “natural fit,” Greenwood said.

The mentors and mentees both sign an agreement to stay together for at least one year, which ensures sustainability, Warfield said. From the program’s inception, there’s been a 93 percent mentor-retention rate. Greenwood has had five mentees, the youngest of which is currently a junior in high school.

BYI has also started a workforce development program, Warfield said, adding that the pandemic caused a “partial disenfranchisement” with education. The workforce development program, which upholds the 1-on-1 mentoring, focuses on skilled trades such as painting, plumbing, landscaping, drywall installation and electrical work.

When the nonprofit initially launched, BYI went to corporations like Comerica Bank, Bank of America and Blue Cross Blue Shield for financing. BYI also requested to speak to Black employees within the companies about being possible mentors. After Blue Cross Blue Shield allowed BYI to meet with 22 employees, BYI walked away with 18 mentors.

”They want to be loved,” Greenwood said of the mentees. “They want somebody to help hold them accountable. They want structure, and Dave’s program, Bing Youth Institute, gives them an opportunity to be around positive people.

“It just lets kids know that somebody cares.”

Bing became a mentor for two years, while having responsibilities as chief executive officer, a position where he’s never taken a salary, Warfield said. It wasn’t unfamiliar territory for him to be a mentor; Bing has mentored notable people like former Syracuse basketball player Derrick Coleman.

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At the time, Jayru Campbell, who later became Bing’s mentee, faced criminal charges in Detroit. He was a standout high school quarterback who committed to play at Michigan State. In 2014, Campbell body-slammed a security guard at his school, and the prosecutor wanted to try him as an adult, charging him with a felony of assault with intent to do great bodily harm.

Bing read the newspaper that morning, and Warfield met him in Bing’s office like they always did.

“I want to help,” Warfield recalled Bing saying.

Bing didn’t think prosecution was going about it the right way. So, he made a call, and helped lessen the charge. Campbell eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of aggravated assault, with an understanding that he would become a mentee in BYI.

“He made a call and did Dave Bing,” Warfield said. “We didn’t assign him a mentor. Dave was his mentor.”

For the two years Campbell was a mentee, he was given a job in the office. Eventually, Campbell played quarterback at Ferris State University (MI), where he helped lead the team to a NCAA Division II championship game appearance in 2018.

Bing said he knows everything he does has some form of impact, whether positive or negative. For the Bing Youth Institute, the impact is to bring a father figure into a young Black man’s life.

“I am elated that we’re doing something that changes lives,” Bing said.

The Syracuse great has forever impacted many in Detroit, the essence of why Boeheim, who said Bing’s maturity has been “ahead of everybody else,” put the blue Ring of Honor jacket onto Bing at halftime Saturday. It’s why his name is forever displayed between Sections 103 and 104.

Boeheim and Bing had met before the NC State game, discussing how to duplicate BYI’s BINGO program in Syracuse. Even though Bing said he doesn’t visit Syracuse as often as before, he intends to be involved in the creation, becoming teammates with Boeheim once again.

“For decades, he’s been mentoring and guiding youth for as long as I can remember,” Greenwood said. “Dave has been a surrogate father to a lot of people.”

Published on January 28, 2024 at 12:37 pm

Contact Cole: colebambini@gmail.com | @ColeBambini