Darrell Downs
In 2012, Darrell Downs was slated to become the general manager of a new facility that his employer, Mac Papers and Packaging, was opening in Music City. So he and his family packed up and moved from North Carolina to East Nashville.
When Downs arrived, he quickly realized the East Side was lacking a dedicated community-based recreational sports program for kids — something that was long-established in other areas of the city. So the Downses decided to create one themselves.
Downs’ son Clay was playing baseball at the time, so that’s where East Nashville Athletics started. But thanks to rapid growth, the program now offers softball, flag football, track and field, and cheerleading for kids ages 4 to 13. Downs and his team have plans to expand to wrestling, volleyball, soccer and maybe even dance in the near future. They also offer further instructional opportunities for kids seeking more than a typical recreational-league experience.
“We just saw a need,” says Downs, who still has his day job at Mac Papers. “So I started looking around at people that could be community volunteers, and I kind of ‘volun-told’ them to come on and help. There’s been a lot of people over the last 12 years that have really stepped up.”
Darrell Downs
Volunteers are integral for a program like ENA, which operates on a shoestring budget as a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Many of the program’s coaches are parents of kids playing in one of the leagues. Once their child ages out, usually the parent moves along with them, disrupting what is intended to be a stable environment. Downs is the son of two teachers, one of whom was also a high school baseball coach, so he knows how important that sense of community is to a kid.
“It’s a passion of mine,” Downs says. “In today’s sports world, so much is divided from winning. It’s fractured all over the place. Ours is [about] community. Our mission is that it’s a safe place to build that community, and to go have fun.”
But with that passion comes a never-ending list of duties — everything from dealing with city government over the use of public baseball diamonds to painting stripes on a flag football field early on Saturday mornings. Everyone, including Downs’ wife Denise, their daughter Brittany, their son Clay, and their 8-year-old twins Amos and Lydia, is involved.
“It could not be done without my wife,” Downs says. “I’m kind of the visionary of what I want it to be; she carries out a lot of stuff. There’s a lot of long hours. It tests your character. … I think that’s my commitment to the community. If I had to kind of summarize my life, I’d much rather be significant than be successful, and I think my family is significant with the community.”
It also costs a lot of money to run multiple sports leagues. You have to pay umpires and referees, upgrade facilities, stock concession stands and buy equipment, among other costs. Plus, ENA never turns down a child over financial concerns, instead offering scholarships to anyone who can’t afford to pay.
“If it wasn’t for sponsors and just good people in the community, it wouldn’t be possible,” Downs says.
Downs has seen kids from the program go on to earn college scholarships, which he says is always a proud moment. But for most of the kids involved, it’s simply about the community-building aspect of local sports.
“There’s a lot of times you want to give up,” Downs says. “But when the season winds down and you have parents come up and say, ‘You don’t know how much you meant to my kid,’ that’s why we keep doing it.”
Photographed by Eric England at Shelby Park
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