It was at age 6 or 7 that Scott Hamilton first began going to the William E. Thrasher Boys Club.
And it was at the club, located in Little Rock’s South End neighborhood, that he learned to swim, which he found was better than sinking. “You were thrown in the pool, and it was in your best interest to learn to swim,” he chuckles. “That’s how we learned to swim back then. Of course, that would never work today.”
When he got a bit older, his family moved, and he switched to the Penick Boys Club. There he learned woodworking, a skill he parlayed into a builder’s license in adult life.
These clubs, now under the umbrella of the Boys & Girls Club of Central Arkansas, are “typically thought of to be very athlete-focused and sports focused,” Hamilton says. “And I’m not an athlete; I’m not a sports guy.
“But that didn’t bother me … there was always something for every kid to get involved with,” he adds. Having to wait his turn to use the pingpong, foosball and pool tables taught Hamilton how to negotiate, get along with others and appreciate teamwork.
These fond memories prompted the energy-industry executive and businessman to team up with his wife, Martie North Hamilton, to serve as co-chairman for the Boys & Girls Club of Central Arkansas’ 100 Year Homecoming Alumni Celebration.
The fundraiser is scheduled for Thursday at the Metroplex in Little Rock. Special guests include a slew of former Razorbacks-turned-pro: roundballers Joe Kleine, Sidney Moncrief and Celia Anderson; the Rev. Marcus Elliott, football player; baseball pitcher Cliff Lee; CBS college football analyst and former Razorback head football Coach Houston Nutt; and former Harlem Globetrotter Hubert “Geese” Ausbie.
The sports theme of the event was born of the fact that so many high-profile athletes with Arkansas ties were veterans of Boys & Girls Clubs, Hamilton says. “For the most part, every one we’ve reached out to is totally excited, very supportive and … understood and appreciated the value of what the Boys & Girls Club had done for them and others.”
David Bazzel — himself a one-time Razorback football standout and Arkansas Sports Hall of Famer — will conduct onstage interviews with alumni-attendees about their experiences growing up in Boys & Girls Clubs or similar organizations. Guests can mingle with the special guests and make on-the-spot club donations urged by both Hamiltons, who will be competing to see who can raise the most money.
The event theme, “It Starts With the Card,” is drawn from Hamilton’s memory of being dropped off at Thrasher. Entrance to the club was possible only with a membership card.
“If you lost your card, you couldn’t get in,” Hamilton says. “That card was your key to fun, key to learning, key to safety. Inside those walls, you were safe, you were secure, you weren’t outside on the street. You weren’t out somewhere where you could possibly get into some things that weren’t good for you.”
SHAPED BY EDUCATION
Hamilton’s desire to help ensure the healthy development of today’s young people has earned him Patrick Presley’s gratitude.
“His work … has been inspiring to say the least,” says the director of development for the Boys & Girls Club. “He’s really taken a lead role in reaching out to alumni from all eras of the clubs and has helped remind them the influence the clubs had on their lives.
“After watching and observing, it seems to me that he has a real, genuine desire to better the lives of young people because he knows it will have an impact on this city for years if not decades to come,” Presley says.
It’s obvious that Hamilton, who turns 51 in August, has picked up many life lessons since those early days at Thrasher.
He’s the middle child and only son of Wanda Hamilton, one of the first black students to attend the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and who now holds an honorary doctorate from the university; and the late W.D. “Bill” Hamilton, an educator, civic leader and school board member for whom the city’s Hamilton Learning Academy was named. The son credits his parents for being “huge proponents of education” and for putting him in situations that trained him to think critically and carefully weigh his options in life.
“They wouldn’t necessarily give you advice,” Hamilton recalls. “What they would do, they’d take you through a process,” he says. For instance, while shopping with him once, Wanda Hamilton encouraged her son to ponder his buying options when he was torn between spending his $8 in job earnings on a model train or a watch. When he was 12, his father took him to a junkyard, rather than a dealership, to look for the car he’d soon be driving once he came of age.
The younger Hamilton took the $500 given him by his father, picked out a 1972 Chevy Vega body along with an engine, transmission and other parts. He built his first car and learned the benefits and responsibilities of ownership. “That was one of the most valuable lessons I’d ever had from my dad,” Hamilton says.
A 1984 Hall High School graduate, Hamilton was the product of early busing in Little Rock.
“I think it led to a really nice opportunity for me to meet and befriend kids I never would have met,” he says. “Many of them are lifelong friends — we went through grade school, junior high, high school, as well as college together at Hendrix,” where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in business and marketing in 1988.
Hendrix, Hamilton says, didn’t have “a very diverse population, but it was a very focused structure and encouraged people to understand and debate — quite frankly — difference.”
Hamilton went on to earn a Master of Business Administration degree from Rockhurst College in Kansas City, Mo., as well as a law degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
PURE ENERGY
Hamilton’s career has been grounded in the energy industry, starting in 1988 with a stint at the former Arkla Gas Co. There he benefited from “a wonderful mentor, Sherman Tate, who took me right out of college, as green as I could be,” he says. Via a management intern program, Hamilton worked in all of the company’s various departments.
Tate, who served as best man at Hamilton’s wedding, says he’s as proud of Hamilton as he would be of his own son.
“What I saw in Scott was a young man who was obviously academically well-prepared, and I thought he was well-suited to meet a need that we had at Arkla at that time, as we did not have anybody of color to work on our rate and regulatory team. And that’s where I put him. He did a wonderful job.” Especially impressive is Hamilton’s way with people, Tate adds. “His interpersonal skills were just top-notch.”
An opportunity drew Hamilton away from Little Rock to Kansas City, where he worked with Kansas City Power and Light while earning his graduate degrees. Later, he worked for a gas utility in northern Michigan and served as an energy adviser for the city of Detroit while building houses on the side. In 2011, Hamilton moved back to Arkansas to see to the welfare of his now-widowed mother and took a job as director for the Arkansas Energy Office.
He works with Midcontinent Independent System Operator, an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to finding the most cost-effective and reliable energy sources for 15 states, including Arkansas.
He’s also the co-owner of two businesses. One of them, Station 801 at 801 Chester St., is a former gas station that houses a group of small businesses — barber shop, beauty shop, an Italian-ice business and an auto repair and sale enterprise. The spot also operates as a food-truck station with dinein capability as well as an event center that recently hosted the city’s first Vegan Festival.
“The original intent was to try to make that place operate as a single business,” Hamilton says. “But [we] realized that economically it didn’t make sense.” And, he adds, “there were a lot of people that wanted to start businesses that would ask me questions, and in most cases they needed a location.”
C.E. “Buddy” Rawls, the other co-owner of Station 801, is impressed by his business partner’s people skills. “There’s no job too big or too small for Scott to jump into and handle very well. I’ve never seen him back away from anything that needed to be done,” including the cleaning, painting and other maintenance tasks he does around the place on weekend mornings.
“In addition, he’s excellent at multitasking … he carries three cell phones,” Rawls says. “And I sometimes get grouchy carrying one, much less juggling three.”
Hamilton also teamed up with his mentor, Tate, to start Hamilton Tate, or HT Sports, presenting sponsor of the alumni reunion.
“We work … with professional athletes in doing two things — building their brand and image, and helping them position themselves for when they’re out of … playing time so that they can have a longevity of prosperity,” Hamilton explains.
The company came about when the two men were talking one day about a 2009 Sports Illustrated magazine study that pointed out that up to 78 percent of all NFL and NBA athletes found themselves broke several years after their playing careers ended. They saw a pattern of poor financial decisions that included the athletes’ money-draining relationships with family, friends and hangers-on. HT Sports is geared toward trying to help these athletes not only make better decisions with their money, but improve their self-confidence and learn other life skills.
CIVIC MINDED
A member of Saint Mark Baptist Church and Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, Hamilton serves on the Little Rock City Planning Commission and on the boards of the Urban League of the State of Arkansas and the Little Rock affiliate of City Year, the schoolbased mentoring program. He also serves on the business advisory board of Philander Smith College.
Pamela Mobley, president and chief executive officer of the RSI Group, an independent municipal advisory firm in Little Rock, and a fellow Hendrix graduate, has served on various boards along with Hamilton. Describing her friend as “very charismatic and smart,” she lauds him for his genuineness. “What you see is what you get with him … there’s no smoke and mirrors,” she says. “He will give you the shirt off his back.”
In his spare time, Hamilton works on construction projects and continues to build and restore cars, including his parents’ 1986 Jaguar XJ6. He and Martie are both lovers of music and love to travel. “We try to find the areas that are listed not to go to, because we like to find real life,” Hamilton says. “We always get off the beaten path and find the unexplored areas to really learn the culture.”
Nonathlete that he may be, Hamilton has certainly proved to be a Most Valuable Player for the Boys & Girls Club. And the challenges Little Rock is seeing now with recent, high-profile incidents of youth violence have made organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club even more necessary, he says.
“I think that our society has to begin to recognize the importance of organizations like a Boys & Girls Club because it … gives an avenue that will allow a kid to be in a structured environment that’s not school, that’s not a church organization, that’s not something that’s affiliated with anything other than trying to help a kid succeed in life.
“I think kids know when someone cares. Kids know when someone is doing something for them that’s about them.”
SELF PORTRAIT
Scott Hamilton
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Aug. 25, 1966, Little Rock
THE BEST ADVICE THAT I’VE EVER RECEIVED WAS the importance of patience. … Taking the time to understand as much of any situation that you’re in before acting or responding.
THE BEST ADVICE THAT I’VE EVER GIVEN: Similar advice — to be aware of, and understand, things that either impact you or that you’re impacting.
MY GUILTY PLEASURE IS cookies. There is not a cookie I’ve met that’s not my friend.
PEOPLE WOULD BE SURPRISED TO KNOW THAT I enjoy working with my hands, getting dirt under my nails, doing really manual labor-type things that a lot of folks would say they would never do.
GUESTS AT MY FANTASY DINNER PARTY: my parents; Stevie Wonder; Maria Haley (the late longtime aide to former President Bill Clinton and executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission); my first-grade teacher; Elon Musk (founder of Tesla Inc. and Space X); and Tony Blair (former Great Britain prime minister)
I THINK EVERY YOUNG PERSON SHOULD EXPERIENCE THE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB BECAUSE it introduces a young person to unlimited opportunity through structured and real-world scenarios.
ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: advocate