Stepping up with a place to play

Earlier this year, the Brian Coyle Center got some amazing news. Thanks to the “Our Courts. Our Futures” program of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx, in partnership with U.S. Bank, the community center in Cedar-Riverside would be getting a new gym. 

“My first thought was ‘Aah! That’s amazing!’” says Jennifer Weber ’11, who coordinates athletics and recreational programming at Brian Coyle as Pillsbury United Communities’ youth education and enrichment manager. 

“My immediate second thought was, ‘What are we going to do with our kids?’”

Coach Weber founded Cedar-Riverside Athletics & Enrichment in 2014 to provide athletics and extracurricular programming for neighborhood youth. “Great things happen when kids are engaged in sports,” says Weber. “Improvements in school attendance, stronger academics, and better outcomes.” 

With school basketball season typically starting up in November, Weber noticed that most of the youth at Brian Coyle couldn’t access “fall ball” leagues in other parts of the metro area—and they wouldn’t get on high school coaches’ radar as a result. So four years ago, she established a fall basketball league for youth at Brian Coyle. No one who wanted to play would be turned away, and the volunteer coaches Weber recruited would serve as mentors to their teams of up to eight players. Now those players spend their Sunday nights preparing to make their high school teams. A parallel arm of the league trains local youth to become paid referees, pairing them with volunteer officials through the Minnesota State High School League. 

But with the Brian Coyle gym under construction, the league would be without a place to play this fall. The timing was tough, as the predominantly Somali-American community in Cedar-Riverside was navigating ongoing scrutiny from the federal government, negative media attention, and the lingering effects of Operation Metro Surge. 

“I ended up in Cedar-Riverside because of Augsburg,” says Weber, who got connected to the neighborhood as an Augsburg education major in 2010 and “never left.” So when her kids found themselves without a gym, she turned to Augsburg. 

Weber reached out to the leadership of Augsburg’s Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship, which has long worked with neighbors on local issues. In June, Sabo Center Director Katie Clark ’10 MAN, ’14 DNP and Director of Community Relations Steve Peacock approached President Paul Pribbenow with an idea to host the basketball league in the Si Melby gymnasium. The President’s Office agreed to sponsor the initiative at no cost to the league, as long as Sabo Center staff would be on site and the scheduling worked for the athletics facilities. 

This fall, Augsburg welcomed the Cedar-Riverside boys’ basketball league every weekend. The Sabo Center team provided support and troubleshooting alongside Weber and her network of coaches, many of whom came up through Brian Coyle athletics programs themselves. Throughout September and October, Sunday nights at the gym were filled with the raucous energy of eight teams of young people playing ball. On the sidelines, Augsburg social work interns and Bonner Community Leaders tabled to survey the participants on what kind of youth programming they’d like to see in the neighborhood in the future.

Clark says her favorite part of the partnership was seeing so many youth from the neighborhood having fun on a college campus. While they may live nearby, many of the players had never visited Augsburg. 

“Is this really a college?” one player, a sophomore, asked Weber early in the season. “I told him it was actually a university, and then we had a 45-minute conversation about Augsburg, the MIAC, the NCAA, and Division III athletics,” she says.  

Taking the time to connect with individual youth and help them start thinking about the future is characteristic of Weber, who received the Spirit of Augsburg alumni award in 2017. “Everybody loves, knows, and respects Coach Weber,” Clark says. “It’s so powerful to see how this Auggie has created such a long-standing impact in the neighborhood. And it’s a great example of how we live out our mission in a way that is embedded in the deep relationships Augsburg has in Cedar-Riverside—relationships that are based in mutuality.” 

On October 19, the crowd at Brian Coyle was all smiles as the Timberwolves and Lynx unveiled the renovated gym. The players are back on their home court now and loving their beautiful new space. But the connection with their neighborhood university will remain. “When messages from the community make their way to Augsburg and Paul Pribbenow, things happen,” Weber says. “When the community is looking for leadership, Augsburg is always there. 

“Augsburg always shows up.”

Read more

• Timberwolves and Lynx Partner with U.S. Bank to Renovate Gym at Pillsbury United Communities’ Brian Coyle Center (NBA.com)
• Spotlight on Jennifer Weber ’11 (Augsburg Now)

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Top image: Participants in the Cedar-Riverside boys’ basketball league play at Augsburg in fall 2026.