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Everyone Gets to Play on His Ball League
by Christopher Walton, Free Press Staff Writer
Dan Varner knew he wanted to contribute to the Detroit community, to make a difference. He just wasn't sure how.
He found the answer on a rock-strewn, weed-stubbled baseball field.
Varner, a 1994 University of Michigan Law School graduate, returned to his native Detroit in 1996 after a yearlong internship as a clerk for Justice Alan Page, a state Supreme Court judge in Minnesota and NFL Hall of Fame defensive end for the Minnesota Vikings. He volunteered to be a baseball coach with the Detroit Police Athletic League, and the poverty of the program shocked him, he says.
"When the guy who ran the program walked up to me and said I'd have to cut some players because there weren't enough uniforms, I decided then and there that I was going to start a baseball league. And everybody who wanted to play would play."
Varner ran the idea by his buddy, Michael Tenbusch, a classmate at University of Detroit Jesuit High School & Academy and a fellow U-M Law School grad.
Tenbusch loved the idea and told Varner of his dream: to start a non-profit group that would recycle used, donated computers and distribute them to schools, churches, and other nonprofit groups in metro Detroit.
Think Detroit was born. Its mission: to improve Detroit's communities through competition and computers.
In the basement of St. Dominic's Church, at the corner of Warren and Trumbull in Detroit's empowerment zone, the Think Detroit office holds some 200 computers that volunteers are refurbishing for distribution.
The inaugural Think Detroit Baseball League attracted 120 boys and girls, mainly from the neighborhoods around the Jeffries Housing Projects.
Twice a week, from June until August, they played ball on Wigle Field, a Cass Corridor sandlot that had been unusable for years until Think Detroit volunteers whacked weeds, raked rocks and painted the bleachers and the benches. Parents rotated the responsibility of providing drinks and snacks for the players after each game. And new uniforms for the 10 teams were donated by Detroit businesses.
Throughout the season, players logged on to the Think Detroit Web site at comnet.org/thinkdetroit to track league standings, view photos and read summaries of the games.
Seven-year-old Courtney Pugh, who has sickle cell anemia, asked whether he could play on a team. Courtney had suffered a stroke eight months before sign-ups began for the Think Detroit Little League, his mother explained, and though his left side was partially paralyzed, he really wanted to play ball.
Varner's reply was immediate: "Of course he can play. Sign him up."
Courtney played for the Great Lakes Diabetic Supply Sturgeon, and over the course of the season, he took a turn at almost every position, just like everybody else.
When Courtney got his first hit, a single to deep shortstop in the last game of the season, "the place erupted into pandemonium," recalls Varner.
Varner, who was born in Detroit, was a year old when he and his family moved to the Caribbean island of St. Croix. They returned to the United States when he was 7, settling in Robinson, Ill. The Varners were the only black family to live there at the time. Two years later, the Varners moved to Southfield.
Varner, who works as an attorney for the Federal Defender Office in Detroit, and his wife of two years, Donica, an attorney with the Detroit law firm of Lewis & Munday, live in northwest Detroit. They are expecting their first child in April.
Varner has been a Detroit resident for just a few of his 28 years, but he feels an obligation to contribute to the revitalization of Detroit.
"To say that I was raised in Southfield, while true, is misleading," he says. "I think everyone raised in the metro Detroit area is in some way raised in Detroit."
Are Dan Varner and Think Detroit making a difference in Detroit? To Courtney Pugh and 119 of his friends, all the difference in the world.
Personal hero: In addition to his father, Lee, and his grandfather, Daniel G. Sampson, Varner's hero is Minnesota State Supreme Court Justice Alan Page. "I could recite a laundry list of what impresses me about him. He's an extremely hard and conscientious worker. He has tremendous integrity, great love for his family. And above and beyond the service he renders his community through his job, he performs additional community service work."
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