Local mentor uses athletics and his own past past troubles to reach youth
When William “Bam” Quinn talks to local youth about avoiding the wrong crowd and getting into trouble, he speaks from experience.
“Back in the 1990s, I got caught up in the drug game,” he said. “I put some poison in the community.”
That poison — cocaine — led to his eventual arrest and a five-year prison sentence.
Released after serving just half of that time, Quinn returned to the Burglund neighborhood where he grew up. Years later, he suffered an aneurysm that should have killed him.
Quinn said escaping the grips of death and a trip through the justice system gave him a new purpose and inspiration to be a positive influence to young men and boys in the neighborhood where opportunities are limited and the ease of making money through illicit activities is all too tempting.
“I’m an old street boy,” he said. “Show them the right path because the path we’ve got going on right now is going to lead to the penitentiary or death. That’s why I use this testimony to these children because I know.
“I’m not telling you something I heard. I’m telling you because I was there.”
Quinn started holding basketball tournaments at his house and moved them onto Summit Street and then to his church, Community of Believers Cultural Fellowship.
He pointed to the locked doors of the new Martin Luther King Center gym and said, ideally, that’s where the basketball program should take place.
“If I could use some of these gyms around here, this is something I could do all the time,” he said.
He sees athletics as an opportunity for youths to learn about teamwork and leadership. And it might be a ticket to a better life for those with natural ability, he said.
He cited proof of that in fellow Burglund residents Jarrod Dyson, who won the World Series with the Kansas City Royals, and Charvarius Ward, who won a Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs, as well as former NFL player Glover Quin, to whom he is related.
“The kids are seeing some young men make it in sports from McComb,” he said. “They’re looking at Ward, they’re looking at Quin, which is one of my kin folk.”
Bam Quinn said he’s a proud native son of Burglund but acknowledges growing up there isn’t the same as other places, which is why he also participates in a mentorship program with the McComb School District.
“Down here it’s mostly just moms, not moms and dads,” he said, adding that he and other mentors, including the Rev. Gary Brumfield, who is now a state senator, former McComb High School basketball coach and principal Levander German and other mentors stand in the gap to serve as positive male role models. “I just took an interest in these kids because I know they struggle.”
Quinn said people have asked him to take on a more formal role, perhaps with a position or a job title, but he said, “That’s not what I do. I get up in these trenches with these kids.”
Many kids in the neighborhood consider college out of reach, he said.
“When you’re walking around in these projects, you’re not seeing LSU, you’re not seeing Mississippi State, you’re not seeing Mississippi College. You’re seeing your friend selling drugs,” he said. “I want to ride around like that. I want to be the man. All of the girls want the drug boys.”
While his main focus is to prevent young boys from getting into trouble with the law, Quinn said he’s there for those who do, often accompanying them to court appearances.
“Some of these kids that get in trouble, we take them to court to make sure they don’t get into no more trouble,” he said. “If a kid goes down there by himself, no mama or daddy, they’re fixing to lock him up. I’ve been down there with so many kids it’s unreal, with all kinds of charges, because their parents won’t go.
“I’ve got street credit, so they trust me. They trust me to not put them in harm’s way, get them locked up or anything like that.”
Quinn said some mothers call him for help rather than the police when they are having trouble with disobedient children.
He sees the frequent shootings happening across McComb, often committed by teenagers and young men in their 20s, and noted how the obsession with guns and violence is a relatively new problem for this generation.
“When I was coming up, we didn’t tote guns,” he said. “The choices they are making now, it’s life-threatening, and you’ll go to jail forever for the decisions they’re making now.”
Quinn said poverty plays a huge role in some of these decisions.
“These kids don’t know where their next dollar is coming from, and if it weren’t for the food stamps they’d wouldn’t know where their next meal is coming from,” he said.
He wants to steer them to better opportunities in the future and believes there is no reason that is impossible.
Quinn, himself an Army veteran, said if college isn’t the answer for some of the kids, then maybe military service is.
“I also push the Army on them, because if you go into the military and you stay in there some years, when you get out, you’re going to get some money every month to keep your family good,” he said.
Quinn said his grandson Jaquan Brumfield is one of the participants in his basketball camp and brags on the skills he learned, saying he always has a basketball with him wherever he goes, and his ball-handling ability shows real promise.
Bam Quinn poses for a portrait with his grandson, JaQuan Brumfield. (Photo by Matt Williamson. Copyright 2024, Emmerich Newspapers, Inc.)
His grandson is what keeps him active in his role as a mentor, he said.
“Now that I’ve got my grandson with me, I’m sure enough 100 with it,” he said.
But for every kid Quinn tries to steer straight, he knows others will fall through the cracks.
“There’s a kid at Higgins right now, man. I’m so scared for him because I don’t know what to do,” he said.
He said he knows the boy is selling drugs.
“Now, when I come to the school, he won’t come to the classes that I’m in, because he knows that I know,” Quinn said. “I’m afraid I’m going to lose that kid because I didn’t do this or I didn’t do that.
“This kid is so talented it don’t make no sense. This is not a disrespectful kid, he’s just hustling.”
That a minor who sells drugs can be considered “a good kid” is one of the ironies of living in places like Burglund, but Quinn said society there just isn’t the same in other parts of the city, and that’s why it takes people who are from there to be a positive influence.
The Georgia Avenue railroad viaduct serves as the gateway to Burglund, and Quinn said it’s the threshold to a different way of life compared to other places in McComb, but he’s trying to even the playing field for kids there.
“When you come up under that tunnel, this is a whole 'nother ball game,” he said.
