History and Background
As a professional basketball player, Toine Murphy's budding career took him miles away from the Detroit community that nurtured him. But as he traveled and played abroad, he never forgot where he came fom and vowed one day to return to his roots. During the course of Murphy's career he built partnerships with NBA players and became active in putting on basketball camps and sports clinics for youth. There was only one problem, Murphy saw a lack of opportunity for urban youth to attend the suburban camps because many could not afford the fees.

In 1997 he partnered with Mark Macon, who then played for the Detroit Pistons and formed Murphy Macon Basketball Camps. Murphy's experience with the camps helped him to hone his own leadership skills and fine-tune his vision. But in order to stay true to his dream, he knew he had to overcome two challenges: getting inner-city kids to the suburban facilities to participate in the camps and providing real-life instruction and programming to go along with sports.

Phase II of Murphy's dream was realized in 1999 when he formed Positive Image, an organization incorporated to deliver sports camps, clinics, motivational speaking, and program development to organizations working with young people. His work with Positive Image helped Murphy to obtain a contract with the State of Michigan and to expand programming.

Murphy's pilot programs and events helped to shape and change the lives of many young people and their families. But one of the major barriers he encourntered was the absence of a nonprofit status that would give donors a tax credit for their contributions. Murphy assembled a team of highly successful individuals with vairous backgrounds to shape the mission, vision and strategic outlook that serves as the foundation for Phase III of his dream.

In 2001, MADCA was founded as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.The final piece to Murphy's puzzle was his alliance with Lloyd L. Banks, III, Community & Local Government Relations Manager for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. The two quickly noticed a symmetry of ideas, goals and a shared vision to affect the lives of young people, especially African-American males, through education, sports, and life skills. Banks serves as co-founder of Murphy's expanded dream as the 2006 official launch of MADCA signifies the realization of a dream almost 10 years in the making.