East Germantown native Darnell Artis wants to give back through his summer basketball league

In some neighborhoods, it’s not always good when the apple doesn’t fall far from its tree.

The result can yield generations that have witnessed life’s negative outcomes.

The Artis family tree, however, includes a Harlem Globetrotter, a rocket scientist, and a university king, all of whom are committed to strengthening roots in East Germantown.

Perhaps that’s why Darnell “Speedy” Artis, now 30, was stung yet undeterred at 12 years old when someone told him, “Nobody from around here goes to college and then becomes a pro.”

“It hurt my feelings a little bit,” said Artis, who joined the Globetrotters in 2017, “but it made me stronger. I feel like it’s [part of] my origin story …”

The latest chapter includes the growth of the UnderDawgs summer basketball league that Artis started at the Lonnie Young Recreation Center with childhood friends in 2018.

On Friday night, the league will host its celebrity all-star game, featuring Jaron “Boots” Ennis, the current IBF welterweight boxing champion, and local rapper Philly Goats, among others.

For Artis, a 5-foot-7 point guard who played at La Salle College High before a hall of fame career at Gwnyedd Mercy University, the event represents the fulfillment of his dream to play basketball, give back to his community, and highlight the accomplishments of others.

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“Darnell is someone who doesn’t like to take the spotlight just to himself,” said his mother, Chan’el. “We always hear about all the bad things going on in our community as far as younger Black men are concerned, so to see them doing positive things makes me proud of all of them.”

Before he became one of the best players in Gwynedd Mercy history, Artis fought for playing time at La Salle.

He didn’t play sports his freshman year because of a strict after-school program that tied scholarship money to his academic performance.

His sophomore and junior seasons were spent almost exclusively playing junior varsity, though the experience paid dividends after he was named the junior varsity team’s MVP as a junior.

“I always say that was my most important year of sports,” Artis said. “A lot of kids these days see JV and think it’s a negative thing and they’re ready to transfer. That was the year I became a leader. I learned to take control of a game. I learned how to communicate with my coach. That’s one of my most cherished awards.”

Artis started every varsity game as a senior, but hadn’t played much AAU basketball, so few colleges recruited him.

Gwynedd Mercy, though, was an early believer.

When prep school became a possibility after graduation, Artis said one of his youth coaches, Mike Lintulahti, now the girls’ coach at Germantown Friends School, suggested he could become one of the best players in Gwynedd Mercy history.

“I think Coach L saw it in me first,” Artis said, “maybe even before I saw it in myself.”

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By the time he graduated, Artis won the Colonial States Athletic Conference rookie of the year, the CSAC championship tournament MVP, and earned first-team all conference honors three times.

He also left as the school’s all-time leader in assists (448), sixth in points (1,319), third in made three pointers (168), and led the Griffins to the 2016 conference title.

His time at Gwynedd also helped him become a pro.

Former Griffins guard Dan DelConte had made an impression playing for the rival Washington Generals, so when the Globetrotters asked Gwynedd’s coaching staff for another player, Artis got the nod.

After his first season, Artis accepted an opportunity to play overseas.

Kevin White, an assistant at Gwynedd who had previously played in Brazil, helped Artis find a team in a Brazilian league that Artis eventually led in scoring.

He couldn’t refuse, however, a second season with the Globetrotters. Today he is sidekick to the team’s “showmen,” assisting the stars before he becomes lead “showman” in the third quarter. He also has taken part in the Globetrotters selection process, interviewing new talent at tryouts.

“I’m a really big family guy,” Artis said. “I thought being a Globetrotter would be a better platform for what I wanted to do long-term.”

Since he was a child, his mother explained, Artis has wanted to help his community.

“Darnell, as a child, would walk past people [living] in the streets, and it bothered him,” she said. “He would give them whatever he had in his pockets.

“Even a few years ago, he took some of his younger cousins downtown to feed the homeless.”

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Commitment to community is why Artis started the summer league.

Coming from a family of fighters might be how he pulled it off.

“We are from here,” Artis said. “My dad is from East Germantown. My mom grew up here. Their parents are from here. That’s why it’s so important what we do around here. We’re really from here. Our whole blood line and lineage is from here.”

The league’s board of directors includes childhood friends: Yusuf Tribble, Shakoor Woodson, Tyreke Johnson, and Rasheen Mays. Even this season’s uniforms have a map of East Germantown across the back.

When it ends in early August, the league also hosts a community day, replete with food, games, and prizes. They call it the “we not me community day.”

They’ve also dubbed this summer season the league’s “legacy year.”

Asked why he didn’t name the league or the community day after himself to secure his own legacy, Artis answered quickly.

“I just felt like it’s about the whole community,” he said. “I want kids to believe they can do anything when they see our logo.”

Artis saw that belief modeled in his own home.

His father, Allen, worked in the kitchen at Abington Hospital at 20 years old. Eventually, he cleaned operating rooms for more than a decade before going to nursing school, which, Artis said, Abington helped pay for.

“They saw something in him,” Artis said of his father. “Now, he’s one of their favorite success stories.”

Allen Artis, 51, has been a nurse for 16 years. He has spent the last seven as a manager, overseeing at least 60 employees.

While Allen was in nursing school, Chan’el’s grandfather got sick, so she also went to nursing school.

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“We were both in nursing school at the same time with three kids,” Chan’el said, laughing. “Some days, I wake up and I just think, ‘Wow, how did we do it?’”

They didn’t raise just any three kids.

In addition to a Globetrotter, Kyrell, 27, studied rocket science in college and is now an aerospace engineer. He is also a board member of the summer league and an emerging rapper named “YR.”

Traquel, 21, recently graduated from Lincoln University, where he studied finance and won numerous awards, including Mr. Lincoln, an ambassador position the school likens to royalty.

Artis doesn’t have children yet, but after the deaths of his cousin, Darryl Curry, and best friend, Zahir Firby, he is heavily involved in the lives of his godchildren.

If he becomes a parent one day, Artis seems confident in his parents’ blueprint.

“I would thank them for making me a man of integrity, instilling morals, and making it less about what I have and more about who is around me,” he said.

“It’s easy to thank parents for sacrificing their time; and I do that. But it’s way deeper than that. I think who they’ve made us as men — we’ll take our lineage and hopefully continue to grow it and hopefully uplift [others] as much as possible.”