HOOP DREAMS : YMCA-LAKERS BASKETBALL PROGRAM TEACHES INNER-CITY KIDS ABOUT TEAMWORK - AND HOPE.

Byline: Jenifer Hanrahan Daily News Staff Writer

The basketball team of 8- to 10-year-olds from the Mid-Valley Family YMCA was up by eight points against a team from Gardena, when coach Reggie Doster Jr. pulled his best players.

Off the bench sprang the littlest kids, the slower ones.

Overpowered, they lost by a last-minute basket.

The coach's call likely cost the team the championship, but hardly anyone complained.

``He didn't win the game, but he won the hearts of a lot of the kids and the parents,'' said Mike Castillo, chairman of the YMCA Jr. Lakers Basketball League and executive director of the YMCA in Huntington Park. ``Those kids learned he had the confidence in them to go out and play the game. And the parents knew why he was doing it. It was an excellent coaching job.''

Here, the aim of the game is less about dribbling and defense than about getting kids off the streets and into the safety of the Mid-Valley Family YMCA in Van Nuys, one of 22 YMCAs citywide that participate in the league.

As a coach, Doster tries to instill his philosophy - that trying hard means more than trophies, that every kid belongs - even if it means sacrificing strategy.

``I want them to see that someone believes in them,'' Doster said. ``Basketball is just a bait to get them in here. My thing is to teach them the basic skills that they need to carry on in life - self-respect and respect for others.''

Since the Los Angeles Lakers started sponsoring the league in 1994, more than 10,000 youngsters - many from low-income and single-parents households - have learned the basics of ball-playing, along with sportmanship, discipline and teamwork.

And the kids occasionally get to rub elbows with big-time NBA players. The Laker organization has promised a player - no one's saying who yet - will make an appearance at the potluck awards banquet for 160 kids and their families at the Mid-Valley YMCA today.

But the $73,000 the Lakers gave to the program this year covered only referee costs. Many of the children can't afford the sign-up fee, which varies from $25 to $65 among the YMCAs.

So each YMCA fends for its own.

``No kid is turned away,'' Castillo said. ``Someway, somehow, we find the money.''

At the Mid-Valley YMCA, the job is left to Doster, 31, who was promoted to sports coordinator in February after two years as a volunteer coach.

He wrote letters and visited businesses - on foot after his car broke down - until he found donors to sponsor 50 children.

``We never want a child to feel like an outsider,'' he said. ``We don't want them to feel they have to turn to gangs. I want them to know they can participate in the community like everyone else, even if they don't have the finances.''

After all that work to get them in, Doster and his support staff of six volunteer coaches insist that the children take their commitment seriously.

If they miss a practice, children have to write a letter explaining what kept them from coming. By January, the YMCA plans to set up a classroom where the kids can do their homework before practice.

And Doster also takes pride in his equal-opportunity athletics. On the team for 8- to 10-year-olds, the captain, Eshaya Murphy, 11, and co-captain Tracy Jones, 11, also happen to be the only girls.

Eshaya's hard work not only earned her a leadership spot - which means she gets to tell the boys to run laps - but she was awarded a pair of top-of-the-line Nike sneakers.

``I wanted to faint I was so happy,'' Eshaya said. ``Coach Reggie said I got them because I was hustling and playing good. He said I played so good and listened so good and didn't talk back to him.''

It's the seemingly small things - effort, attentiveness, respect - that add up to big changes, Doster said.

Not far from the YMCA, in the Van Nuys neighborhood where Doster lives with his wife, Debbie, and two sons, ages 4 and 10, gang monikers are scrawled on the pavement and buildings. A nearby park, the Van Nuys Recreation Center on the corner of Tyrone Avenue and Vanowen Street, was the site of a fatal shooting last month.

Three years ago, Doster bought a $300 basketball rim and set it up for neighborhood kids' use on a makeshift court in the parking lot of his apartment complex.

``There was nothing for them to do,'' he said. ``If they're running around loose looking for trouble, it's going to find them.''

Doster decided he could help even more children by volunteering at the YMCA.

Darrol Taylor, 15, recalled the first time Doster invited him to play.

``When I first met him, I was bad-mouthing everything,'' Darrol said. ``I was saying, `Forget you. You're not my dad.' ''

Eventually, Darrol warmed to him. So did Donte Palmer, 15.

``He taught me things no one taught me before,'' Donte said. ``He taught me how to be more of a gentleman. Instead of picking fights, how to be calm. He's a wonderful person. He treats us just like he treats his own.''

When Doster started coaching, he bought memberships for Darrol, Donte and several other kids.

``Outside, there's always everybody starting fights,'' Darrol said. ``Inside, everybody knows each other. It's a community.''

This year, two teams from the Mid-Valley YMCA are going to the citywide championships that will be held Saturday at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood.

Lynn Holdsworth will be there, cheering for her son, 9-year-old Christopher, who scampered up and down the court, grinning and high-fiving his teammates, at a recent practice.

For Holdsworth, who Doster calls his ``No. 1 team Mom,'' helping out at practice gives her a respite from the painful memories of the death of her oldest son, George McConnell.

McConnell, 24, was shot and killed on Oct. 20, 1995, in North Hills.

``Christopher idolized his older brother,'' said Holdsworth, who also has an 11-year-old daughter. ``When he came here, he was quiet and withdrawn. But Reggie worked with him. And the team camaraderie has been a big help.''

Holdsworth, a Van Nuys resident, sometimes wonders if there was something she could have done to prevent her oldest son from falling in with gangs, or if a basketball program like this one could have given him an alternative.

``I consider the Y the only oasis in the middle of the city,'' Holdsworth said. ``This is a family. This is a community. We help each other out. Years ago, we'd see kids hanging around the Y. Through this basketball program, they know they can come in.''

Where to sign up

Sign-ups for the winter session of the YMCA Jr. Laker's Basketball League are Nov. 1 to Jan. 31 at the following locations:

Mid-Valley Family YMCA, 6901 Lennox Ave., Van Nuys. [phone].

West Valley Family YMCA, 18810 Vanowen St., Reseda. [phone].

East Valley Family YMCA, 5142 Tujunga Ave., North Hollywood. [phone].

North Valley Family YMCA, 10925 Columbus Ave., Mission Hills. [phone].

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Reggie Doster Jr. coaches his team.

(2) Michael Springer, left, and Tony Mays, players on a Mid-Valley Family YMCA team in the Jr. Lakers Basketball League, watch a game from the bench.

(3) Darrol Taylor, front, has thrived under the rigors of basketball, but the 15-year-old admits that when he first began working with his coach at the Mid-Valley Family YMCA, ``I was bad-mouthing everything. I was saying, `Forget you. You're not my dad.' ''

(4) Assistant coach Lincoln Orsborn goes over game plans before players hit the floor.

David Richard Crane/Daily News

(5) Mid-Valley Family YMCA coach Reggie Doster Jr. fires up his players.

Jeremy Greene/Special to the Daily

Box: Where to sign up (See Text)