Leditt Butler Turns 48: 25 Years Building Hub City Y1000

Lubbock has no shortage of youth sports leagues. What it has had for 25 years, since Leditt Butler first envisioned it in 2001, is one built specifically to keep kids connected to their neighborhood and to the adults in it. Butler turns 48 today, and the program that idea became, Hub City Street Hoops and its nonprofit arm Hub City Y1000, launched in 2020, has quietly become one of the more structured, numbers-backed youth mentorship operations in the city.

The core program is Safe Place for Youth, a structured after-school and evening program for ages 12 to 17, Monday through Friday from 1:00 to 7:00 PM. It is not just a gym with a coach. The daily schedule moves kids through academic enrichment and tutoring, plus mentorship sessions on goal-setting and conflict resolution. Sports and recreation time follows, along with team-building activities and a life-skills block covering financial literacy and workforce readiness. The program enrolls 100 to 150 youth a year, with 40 to 60 kids on-site daily, at a mentor-to-youth ratio of roughly one to eight.

The mentorship does not stop when a kid turns 18. Young Adult Pathways extends the program to ages 18 through 25 with job training, trade school support and college readiness help. Butler built a pipeline, not just a league.

Hub City Y1000 just held its ninth annual First Responders vs. Youth game this past March, a free public event at 1323 East 24th Street built around Lubbock Police Department and Lubbock Fire Rescue playing alongside local kids, sponsored in part by Domino's Pizza. Nine years in, it has grown from an idea into an established Lubbock tradition, still built around the same premise: put kids and the adults serving their neighborhood on the same side of the ball before they ever have to meet any other way.

Butler works as an educational aide at LISD's Priority Intervention Academy, and for the 2025-26 school year he is running a program there called Real Talk with Our Youth, bringing in guest speakers for career talks, life-choices conversations and goal-setting sessions designed to help students return to their regular campuses with a renewed sense of purpose. A kid he works with after school might see him again in the building on Monday morning.

The work has drawn recognition inside the district and out. In 2020, Phillips 66 named Butler a Live to the Full Hero and honored him during the Big 12 Basketball Championship. More recently, LISD named him Alternative Campus Paraprofessional of the Year for his work at Priority Intervention Academy. He has also become a familiar face at Lubbock civic events, recently appearing at Lubbock AMBUCS' 65th anniversary celebration.

The long-term goal is a dedicated boys academy in Lubbock. It would be a physical home for mentorship and education, where athletics and character development happen every day, built in partnership with the West Texas Foundation and Lubbock ISD. Hub City Y1000 describes it as a three to five year vision. It builds on an existing program the nonprofit already runs, the Gipson Young Men Academy, which focuses on building character and discipline while developing leadership in young men across Lubbock.

Hub City Y1000 publishes real sponsorship tiers: $500 for a Friend Sponsor, $1,000 for a Champion Sponsor and $1,500 for a Legacy Sponsor, each funding a different level of program support. The organization is also recruiting coaches, mentors, tutors, event staff and board members. Contact (806) 283-7868 or hcshy1000@yahoo.com.

Today, on his 48th birthday, the mission is the same one Butler had at the start: give Lubbock kids somewhere to belong, and adults who do not leave.