The Jesse White Tumbling Team of Cabrini Green, Chicago, clad in their red bodysuits with white suspenders, have stunned audiences at the World's Fair, the Silverdome, and Chicago Bears games. Today they perform before hundreds of their peers from fifty competitive teams of the U.S. Trampoline and Tumbling Association (USTA) in Oswego, Illinois.
As the crowds fill the bleachers, the Jesse White Tumblers assemble on the red mats below. One member runs to join the others, carrying a "portable" radio half his size. The formation tightens, the music begins, and coach White introduces his team as the tumblers handwalk, upside down, across the mats.
In an instant, they bound into action. The younger members make a formation with their legs held up in the air in a V-shape as older members whirl across the mats, doing four forward rolls and flipping over their younger colleagues two at a time. Excitement builds as the dynamic team completes a series of seemingly effortless miracles in clockwork precision, bounding across the mats with backflips, airborne twists, and somersaults.
Coach White positions a trampolette in front of the forty-foot stretch of mats. A split second later, a tumbler hits its surface and is jettisoned twenty feet into the air, summoning a rush of applause from the crowd. Seconds later, another figure is twirling through the air, landing just inches beyond the first. While the applause continues, a third, fourth, and fifth tumbler snap and whirl through hoops and sail high above a pyramid that had been formed by other teammates.
For the finale, the trust and partnership of the team are manifested. One by one, each tumbler completes a flip and joins a tight lineup that stetches for thiry feet. Suspense fills the gym as coach White makes his announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce that I have brought with us today - Superman!" The coach then tucks himself into the lineup, offering inspiration and a watchful experienced eye. In the silence of anticipation, Derwin Patterson sprints to the trampolette and catapults himself high above his twenty teammates. Cheers and screams rise with the audience as he lands neatly. He later explains, "It feels like flying. Once you propel yourself into midair with your head tucked into your chest, you're blind till you land on your feet."
Applause is at a crescendo as the line of tumblers makes a quick bow and exits.
Outside, the lean figures file into a van with a quick leap. A spirit of victory fills the vehicle as it rumbles out of the parking lot, trailed by screaming teens clutching autograph books and programs that some of the tumblers had signed.
The miracle of the Jesse White Tumblers does not stop with their performances. It lies also in their origins and in the man who has dedicated twenty-seven years of his life to developing the group.
Jesse White's office, the Northside Service Center, sits in the heart of the tumblers' neighborhood, the Cabrini Green area in the Near North Side of Chicago. The mention of Cabrini Green conjures up fear. The high-rise housing projects have been a breeding ground for gang crime. Gang shootings from 1984 through July 1985,
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