Sports Illustrated
Published: December 8, 2011
By: Jeff Benedict
The iPhone beside Kitam Hamm's bed vibrates at 6:15 on a recent morning, stirring him awake. A car alarm pulses in the alley and police sirens scream past, noises so familiar that they go unnoticed. Squinting, Hamm flips on the light. Letters from college football recruiters -- all neatly taped to the wall next to his bed -- come into focus: Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, UCLA, Columbia and seven more. They are the first thing the 18-year-old Hamm sees every morning, a daily reminder that he's one step closer to making it out of Compton, Calif.
In a neighborhood with at least three rival gangs, Hamm's every move is orchestrated, right down to what he wears and which route he takes to school. Hamm's 12-unit apartment complex is surrounded by a black iron fence and has a single secured entrance. It sits in a neighborhood where the streets are lined with billboards, walls with graffiti and small businesses secured by bars and gates. For Hamm, dropping his guard can be the difference between life and death.
SI.com Published: December 5, 2011 By: Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian
When the Dominguez High football team arrived by bus at Compton High for a Friday-afternoon game in September, the Dons players found four police cars parked around the stadium and every entrance to the field in lockdown. The stands had been emptied half an hour earlier as a further security precaution. Such is game day in Compton, where fears of gang activity overshadow even the city's biggest sports rivalry.
After waiting for 10 minutes while guards unchained a padlocked gate in the security fence that surrounds the stadium, the Dominguez players ran onto the field and broke the silence. "The Lord is my shepherd," chanted the team captains in unison.
"I shall not want," the rest of the team shouted back.
SI.comPublished: December 1, 2011By: Jeff Benedict
The presence of gang members on college sports teams is a topic my colleague Armen Keteyian and I started looking into last spring. After getting an exclusive look at a forthcoming study on the subject, we talked to many experts, but our story didn't come into focus until mid-September when we spent a weekend in Compton, Calif., the birthplace of the Bloods and Crips and one of the leading hot spots for college football and basketball recruiting.
Our first stop was the Los Angeles County Sheriff's substation there, where we met up with Sgt. Brandon Dean, head of the gang unit in Compton. The city's 10-square-mile footprint is home to 34 street gangs and more than 1,000 documented gang members. Dean, 34, agreed to give us a firsthand look. It was a ride I'll never forget.
Deseret NewsPublished: December 1, 2011By: Jeff Benedict
For the past three months I've been working on one of the best stories of my career. It appears in Sports Illustrated today and is called "Straight Outta Compton." It's about a boy, his parents, and their quest to make it out of one of the most gang-infested areas in America.
To report this story, I worked with an amazing team — Armen Keteyian, chief of the investigative unit at CBS Evening News; Pulitzer Prize-winning, freelance photographer Deanne Fitzmaurice; and my exceptional editor B.J. Schecter.
Compton is the birthplace of the Bloods, the Crips and gangsta rap. I spent a lot of time there on this project. Along with Keteyian, I got a crash course on gangs and the streets they occupy, courtesy of Sgt. Brandon Dean, the head of the gang unit for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept. Dean, 34, drove us all over town, showing us where gangs reside, how they mark territory, and the wreckage they leave behind.
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A top student and football star in South Central L.A., Kitam Hamm is one of a growing number of high school athletes who face life-and-death decisions every day as they try to survive in gang-infested communities
JEFF BENEDICT, ARMEN KETEYIAN
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Sports Illustrated CBS NEWS
The iPhone beside Kitam Hamm's bed vibrates at 6:15 on a recent morning, stirring him awake. A car alarm pulses in the alley and police sirens scream past, noises so familiar that they go unnoticed. Squinting, Hamm flips on the light. Letters from college football recruiters—all neatly taped to the wall next to his bed—come into focus: Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, UCLA, Columbia and seven more. They are the first thing the 18-year-old Hamm sees every morning, a daily reminder that he's one step closer to making it out of Compton, Calif.
Deseret News
Published: November 27, 2011
By: Jeff Benedict
If I could be someone else for five minutes, I'd be Van Morrison so I could sing "Someone Like You" to my wife.
I've been all around the world
Marching to the beat of a different drum
But just lately I have realized
The best is yet to come
Someone like you makes it all worthwhile
Someone like you keeps me satisfied
Someone exactly like you.
Deseret NewsPublished: October 16, 2011By: Jeff Benedict
Remember Ray Brown?
He's the 86-year-old bookkeeper I wrote about back in July after he was diagnosed with cancer and ended up in a nursing home. Ray's story generated more reader mail than any column I've written.
"Even though I never met the man," a farmer from Preston, Conn., wrote, "people like Ray Brown make life worth living by the way they handle their own life."
It was easy to love a man like Ray. I say "was" because at 11 a.m. on Oct. 11, Ray was buried near his mother and stepfather at the Colonel Ledyard Cemetery in southeastern Connecticut. He died Oct. 5.
Deseret NewsPublished: September 28, 2011By: Jeff Benedict
On a cold, gray day in early 1962, 41-year-old artist Ed Vebell put down his paintbrush and stepped back from the easel in his seaside studio in Westport, Conn.
His half-finished illustration for the upcoming issue of Reader's Digest would have to wait. Vebell had been summoned to a meeting with two representatives from the LDS Church.
With the New York World's Fair due to open in 1964, the church was actively courting top artists to produce paintings, murals and sculptures for its Mormon Pavilion exhibit. Westport was the go-to place. Home to the Famous Artists School, the town attracted some of the best commercial artists in America. Vebell's friends — artists Harry Anderson and Alex Ross — lived nearby and were also being pursued to work on the Mormon Pavilion project.
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