A Durham League of Their Own

Game day atmosphere is electric. Bleachers are lined with fans; music blares through speakers, hyping up players as they go through their warm-up routines. Die-hard fans can watch highlight reels and check team stats on Instagram.

No, this isn’t the NBA or WNBA—this is a game in the Durham League, an upstart adult recreational basketball league founded in 2016 by Robin Jackson, the league’s commissioner. The first five seasons were women-only; since 2021, Jackson has expanded it to include a men’s league, a 35+-years-old league, and a 50+ league. Nowadays, some league players aren’t old enough to legally drink alcohol. Others are old enough that they’re starting to get mailers from AARP. The league has 225 players in total.

Jackson, 38, is a Michigan native. A 2008 graduate of Indiana Tech, where she played college basketball, she moved to Durham in 2012 after visiting her cousin, who worked at Duke. 

“I flew back to Michigan after a visit in November and there was a snowstorm,” Jackson says, “and I was like, ‘Yeah, this is not working.’ So I packed all the stuff I could fit in my car and moved to Durham.”

Finding pickup games and leagues for women in Durham proved challenging and Jackson often traveled to Raleigh or Cary to compete. Other women in the area expressed similar frustrations. 

Seeing an opportunity to support her peers and continue playing basketball, Jackson started the Durham League. Almost immediately, it attracted high-level competition, with players coming in from cities like Fayetteville, Charlotte, and Winston-Salem. Many of them had also played college basketball and were looking for an outlet to maintain their skills.

“I wasn’t a 6’2” point guard who can dunk, so I’m not quite going to cut it in the WNBA,” says Selena Castillo, a league player, “but I still want to play, I’m still good, and I still love and respect the game and want to improve.”

Castillo is the director of external affairs for the Duke women’s basketball program. Before moving to Durham in 2017, Castillo ran her own league for years in Tampa Bay, Florida, where former collegiate and professional women’s basketball players found opportunities to continue playing competitively, even after their days in the spotlight were over. There, starting a league was about providing a competitive outlet not only for others but also for herself. 

“Selfishly, I wanted a place to keep playing,” Castillo says.

Castillo had been a high-level hooper in her own right: she set the all-time steals record at Emory University during her four-year career. But opportunities for competition at that level are limited for women’s players if you don’t make the jump to the WNBA or professional leagues overseas.

Castillo offered to share resources with Jackson and joined the league as a player. Her team, the Wolfpack, named after the mascot at NC State University, where many of her teammates previously attended school, are three-time champions of the Durham League. She “begrudgingly played on that team and wore a red shirt,” she jokes, adding that as a Duke employee, wearing the red and white was “better than the alternative light blue option” associated with UNC-Chapel Hill.

Expanding the league

In 2021, the Durham League expanded.

After advertising the women’s league on social media, Jackson began getting requests from men in the area who said there was a dearth of adult basketball opportunities in Durham. Seeing another opening, she began recruiting players.

“I put a flier together,” Jackson says. “When I was out and about, if I saw somebody that looked like they played basketball, I’d tell them I’m trying to start a men’s league.” 

That summer, the first men’s season launched with six teams. James “Jimmy” French—a forward with the size and shooting range to give any opponent trouble—started creating content to promote games for the team he created, 3XP, all over his Facebook page, emulating shows like ESPN’s SportsCenter by producing mixtapes, compilations of a baller’s best moves, and player interviews. He even created a logo and custom jerseys so that his team would stand out amongst the competition. French, a Durham native, played basketball at Jordan High School. He says the Durham League brought folks out of retirement whom he used to play against in high school but who had not done organized sports in years.

“Now, we’re all playing together and fellowshipping again,” French says. “People feel rejuvenated.”

The additional online promotion from French and others boosted the league’s notoriety. By the third season of the men’s league, a total of 11 teams had signed up to participate.

“I started talking to Jimmy and he told me, ‘This [league] is cool. The city needs this. There’s nothing for us to do,’” Jackson says. “When I looked further into it, all the guys kind of felt the same way.”

Loneliness in America has become a growing problem, particularly since the onset of the pandemic, with recent studies reporting that about half of U.S. adults have experienced measurable levels of loneliness. The problem is particularly acute among young men, with one in seven men between the ages of 15 and 24 saying they have no close friends. When it comes to available forms of connection and entertainment, barhopping or playing video games are the likeliest to crack the top of the list for younger generations. But that’s why opportunities like the Durham League are so important, and for players and fans alike, the gym isn’t just a place to compete or support friends and family. It’s a sanctuary.

Athletes and coaches often use words like “fraternity” and “brotherhood” to describe sports organizations. Team sports reveal a lot about someone’s personality and teach us important life skills like leadership, cooperation, and resilience. Deep, lifelong relationships between teammates and opponents are often fostered through the trials of heated competition.

My own relationships are a testament to this: I’ve played competitive team basketball for most of my life and have played on Durham League teams for several seasons. Years ago, I quickly developed a connection with another player, Raj, during pickup runs at the Cage at American Tobacco Campus purely off the strength of our on-court chemistry—he was a shifty point guard who knew exactly where to pass the ball, and I was a volume shooter who thrived on the receiving end. In 2021, Raj invited me to be a groomsman in his wedding—an incredible honor. It all started with a love for basketball. 

Next plays 

“Sports are a great unifier,” says Kaila’Shea Menendez, deputy director at the Durham Sports Commission and a former college basketball player at Western Carolina University. Investing in recreational sports builds community-wide health and wellness, she says. 

“There’s physical activity. There’s social interaction,” Menendez adds. “It’s an outlet that allows people an opportunity to do something that brings them joy and a sense of belonging in a safe environment.” 

As part of the city’s economic development plan, it created the Durham Sports Commission. In the past, the commission has recruited a number of high-profile sporting events such as the National Collegiate Fencing Championships and the NAIA Football National Championship. But the Sports Commission is also looking for ways to reinvest in Durham residents. Basketball is one way. 

“We know that not every athlete is going to go on and play college,” Menendez says. “These athletes are going to matriculate. They’re going to be the people who fill these adult leagues. So we need to make sure they have the resources to excel in sports and in life and start talking about next steps.”

The city has seen increasing alignment between residents and council members about the need to invest in better facilities and more recreational programming. During a recent discussion about ShotSpotter, Mayor Leonardo Williams reiterated the need for more programs to support young people, Black men in particular, as an alternative method to reducing crime.

“I hear a lot of the commentary around ‘Why not [ShotSpotter]?’” Williams said. “I actually agree with a lot of it. I said the same thing. We do need more food security programs. We do need better healthcare. We do need after-school programs. Our kids are too bored in this city. We have to have more of a robust recreational program across the entire city.”

Things are trending in a positive direction: The City of Durham has made significant improvements to their facilities in recent years. Many of the parks now include essential features like restrooms and water fountains, and a handful of the basketball courts now have outdoor lighting.

In 2022, the Durham Sports Commission established the One Team, One Durham Fund, a privately managed fund that helps offset the costs of sports participation for parents and organizations that may lack the means. And in June, the city received an updated proposal from Discover Durham and the Durham Sports Commission to build a giant sports complex that would support up to 30 indoor and outdoor sports. Williams supports the idea conceptually, but says finding the money and the over 60 acres needed to build the complex will be tricky.

“We can only find that kind of land in the outskirts of the city,” Williams says.

More funding and a permanent home to host games would help Jackson continue managing the league, she says, which she does on top of her regular job. The Durham League has created an opportunity for Jackson to foster relationships between young adults in Durham, some of whom are at risk of falling through the cracks.

“They’re all at the age where they could be getting into trouble. But they’re coming to their games and staying after the games, so I know where they are,” Jackson says. “I check up on them all the time on Instagram if I don’t hear from them and they appreciate that. It’s turned into me doing it more for the community than anything.”

Follow Reporter Justin Laidlaw on Twitter or send an email to [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected]. 

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