Alumnus Nigel Harvey teaches basketball players the rules of the game and the rules of life.
Nigel Harvey’s Cream Skills Basketball Association puts students on the right path to success
Brionne Williams was on the brink.
He was a freshman at Milwaukee Public Schools’ Vincent High School. He wasn’t a great student, but he was going to class and trying. He wasn’t hanging out with the best people, but he never was in any serious trouble.
A nudge here or there could have sent him either way — to graduation, college and success, or to truancy, crime and heaven only knows what.
In the summer of 2018, he joined the Cream Skills Basketball Association, a free, 11-week, co-ed summer basketball league.
Created in 2015 by MATC alumnus Nigel Harvey, the league works to help students aged 14-17 build character, develop life skills, foster entrepreneurship, and prevent violence through basketball and education.
While Williams and other players honed their basketball skills, they developed life skills in classes on financial literacy, health, fitness and entrepreneurship.
It was just what Williams needed.
“Brionne was a kid who was rough around the edges,” Harvey recalled. “As he got involved with the league, I saw him mature. He stopped hanging out with the wrong people.”
Williams graduated from Vincent High School in the spring of 2021 and enrolled in MATC where he played basketball for two seasons. During the 2022-23 season, he averaged 8.1 points and 3.6 rebounds per game and helped the Stormers win the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II national championship.
He graduated in May 2024 with an Associate of Arts degree and continued his education and basketball career at Avila University in Kansas City, Missouri.
Over the summer, Cream Skills players learn about college life and financial literacy in the STEM Educational Center. Basketball skills are learned in the college’s gymnasium.
The Secret Sauce
Since 2016, Harvey has shepherded more than 800 students, including Williams, through Cream Skills. He is showing no signs of slowing down as he prepares for the league’s ninth season this summer.
“This is where I fit in,” said Harvey, who these days sports a long wispy beard streaked with silver. “This is where I should be. I make this something I love to do, so I love doing it. If you make it a treat, it’s not a punishment.”
Harvey believes the success of the league, what he calls the “secret sauce,” comes from the high level of encouragement and education the students receive during the two summer months.
“To me, it’s the amount of engagement,” he said. “When kids see you’re involved and they see you are invested in this, they stay.”
Harvey also has a wonderful knack for convincing people to sponsor teams, officiate games and coach players. He convinced his son, a student in MATC’s Architectural Technology program, to help him.
“I’m a good salesman,” the elder Harvey said with a laugh. “I can sell myself very well, especially if I have a good idea. It’s very convincing when you have the proof in the pudding. Also, people see me involved and hear about what we are doing through word of mouth.”
Solutions on the court
Harvey grew up in Pittsburgh and moved to Milwaukee. In 2008, Harvey’s best friend was killed after playing basketball with some neighborhood youngsters. “That really struck my heart,” Harvey, who is African American, said in 2016. “It really made me look for solutions. I was tired of the same situation, the same scenario — the Black-on-Black violence was getting to me.”
He started a youth league in West Allis that lasted a few years. He realized that he needed support from the community and businesses to make his idea thrive.
At the same time, he earned an associate degree in Human Services from MATC in 2012. At the college he met Armen Hadjinian, coordinator and instructor in the Entrepreneurship program, and pitched his idea about a youth basketball league.
“I never thought it would go anywhere, and I figured I would never see him again,” Hadjinian said. “A month later he’s taking me to meet some local businesses.
“So many people talk about doing things like this, but Nigel has been able to pull it off. He gets so many people to volunteer their time and that has meant a lot of continuity and consistency for the program,” said Hadjinian, who serves as vice president and co-treasurer on the Cream Skills leadership team.
The league started in June 2016. Classes were held at MATC and games were played at the COA Youth Center. In the summer of 2024, the games moved to MATC’s gymnasium and students started taking classes in MATC’s STEM Educational Center on the Downtown Milwaukee Campus.
“The students see a lot of hands-on things; they see a lot of skill at work,” Harvey said. “For many of them, this is the first time at a college and they begin to see there is a light of opportunity at the end of a tunnel.”
Getting students into the building is important, Hadjinian added, so they can familiarize themselves with the surroundings.
Harvey has so far resisted the temptation to expand the program; he wants to perfect it first.
“I use what’s working, and then I double down,” he said. “But we need more time to polish our product.”
He wants to expand programming to operate during the school year, create a league for middle school students, start a girls-only league and perhaps purchase a facility, Harvey said.
Whatever the program becomes, Harvey will always want to help students succeed.
“Bad things happen in this world. We have lost three students in this program to gun violence, but I like to say that we have saved more than 800,” he said. “When I see students graduate high school, when I see them mature, when I see them go to college, that outweighs everything else.”
Cream Skills Basketball Association is always seeking players, volunteers and support. For more information, visit creamskillsinc.org.