{"id":343625,"date":"2025-12-12T03:59:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T03:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/343625\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T03:59:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T03:59:10","slug":"14th-annual-say-detroit-radiothon-draws-big-names-announces-new-st-cecilias-say-play-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/343625\/","title":{"rendered":"14th annual Say Detroit Radiothon draws big names, announces new St. Cecilia\u2019s \u2018Say Play\u2019 center"},"content":{"rendered":"

TROY, Mich. \u2013 Mitch Albom\u2019s 14th annual Say Detroit Radiothon brought out countless big names from the world of sports and entertainment on Thursday at the Somerset Collection in Troy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe arrived at six in the morning, and there was a man here with a $10,000 check,\u201d Albom, the longtime Detroit Free Press columnist and author, said. \u201cWe got off to a great start and five minutes in, Alice Cooper called from London, and he was our first guest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s event raised $2.23 million \u2013 the most money in its history \u2013 at Say Detroit, a nonprofit Albom started in 2006. <\/p>\n

It runs an after-school learning center and free family health clinic, along with a housing program for Detroit<\/a> families.<\/p>\n

They have also begun revitalizing the city\u2019s recreation centers, opening the sprawling \u201cSay Play\u201d center at Lipke Park on Detroit\u2019s east side. <\/p>\n

The rec center has a basketball court, football and baseball fields, and an educational complex.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been in operation for 10 years now,\u201d Rick Kelley, Say Detroit\u2019s executive director, said. \u201cWe have over 200 kids a day at our center.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve improved test scores, math, English, you name it,\u201d Kelley said. \u201cWe got a lot of momentum from the community saying you need to do this again somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

That someplace else came in the form of an announcement of a new Say Play facility at the legendary St. Cecilia\u2019s gym on Livernois and Stoepel on Detroit\u2019s west side.<\/p>\n

The gym, which was part of the old St. Cecilia\u2019s church, first opened up as a rec center in 1967. <\/p>\n

The decision to revive it came at the suggestion of Mayor Mike Duggan.<\/p>\n

The iconic gym became the home of generations of Detroit hoopers \u2014 including Dave Bing<\/a>, Isiah Thomas<\/a>, Steve Smith, Jalen Rose<\/a>, and Chris Webber<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody talks about what it was like in New York; what it was like in Philadelphia; what it was like on the West Coast,\u201d Bing, the former Detroit<\/a> Mayor, said. \u201cNone of them were better than St. Cecilia\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Bing was a rookie with the Detroit Pistons<\/a> in 1967, he trained at the gym during a contract holdout. He eventually convinced the Pistons to buy the gym a working scoreboard.<\/p>\n

Bing, along with former police chief Ike McKinnon and former Piston and U of D Titan Earl Cureton, had created the \u201cCeciliaville<\/a>\u201d initiative and had been working for years to fully restore the gym.<\/p>\n

\u201cKids came from all over the city to play ball or to feel safe at St. Cecilia\u2019s,\u201d McKinnon said. \u201cIt\u2019s still the same as you remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar to its east side counterpart, the new St. Cecilia\u2019s will keep the gym and add an academic wing, a STEM lab, and a football field. Kelley says the change will happen in phases, and money is still being raised toward the full construction.<\/p>\n

Earl Cureton passed away suddenly on Feb. 4, 2024, and he was represented at the event by his wife, Judith, and his daughter, Sari. McKinnon said that Thursday was a day that his friend would\u2019ve<\/p>\n

\u201cEarl would be so happy,\u201d McKinnon said. \u201cHe always said he was a kid from Mack and Bewick on the east side of Detroit who had to take two buses to get here. Look at what we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TROY, Mich. \u2013 Mitch Albom\u2019s 14th annual Say Detroit Radiothon brought out countless big names from the world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[172057,138616,172055,2120,4576,88,47542,172056,216,22184,31126,11829,27208],"class_list":["post-343625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ceciliaville","tag-chris-webber","tag-dave-bing","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-entertainment","tag-isiah-thomas","tag-jalen-rose","tag-music","tag-oakland-county","tag-steve-smith","tag-troy","tag-wayne-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}