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He, along with William Gates, was recruited by St. Joseph High School in Westchester. The critically acclaimed documentary, “Hoop Dreams,” followed the dream and the personal struggles.

On Wednesday night, Agee, now 37, remembered the experience of being in the documentary and talked about the recent eruption of youth violence at the 15th anniversary celebration and fundraiser.

Although he didn’t make it to the NBA, Agee has been successful, having recently launched a “Hoop Dreams” clothing line and crisscrossing the country to speak to students about turning their own dreams into reality through his Arthur Agee Foundation.

Q: How does it feel to be here and celebrating this film 15 years later?

I feel very blessed that people still have a relationship with the film and that they’re very much wanting to know the whereabouts of me and William and what happened to us afterwards. So, I feel very blessed.

Q: One thing that came up tonight during the presentation was Chicago’s violence. What are some of the things that young people have said to you that have stuck with you, through your foundation and work in the community, that you can speak to right now?

The most things that they say to me [have to do with] their environment. How there isn’t anything for them to do except hang out on the corners and hang with the wrong crowd and be at the wrong place at the wrong time. On the flip side of that, it’s all a mental thing because you don’t have to be your environment. You can actually make the choice for yourself because within your environment, you already see what’s going on as far as the killings, the drugs, the gangs. Just walking to the store you can be murdered. Putting that in their face, full front, and let them understand that and showing other people who made it out of their environment and who’ve made it better and tried to make the environment better by community organizations, by coat drives, by nonprofit organizations in the community, teaming together for one common cause. And we haven’t seen that today. We haven’t seen that throughout the West Side, the South Side even the CPS school system. Right now it’s a touchy situation because a lot of people and a lot of kids don’t have anything. They don’t have a relationship with their mom and father. Some of them are not in the home. So how can you tell that kid ‘don’t be in your environment.’ ‘ Don’t worry about not having a mom or dad.’ But who’s the adult that’s gonna be around that person and steer him the right way? And our kids, inner-city kids, they need encouragement every single hour, every single second. They need to be reminded, ‘No you can’t do that.’ And that is missing.

Q: We talked briefly about dreams versus reality. And as a young person that’s what you think about, dreams; you don’t always think about the practical side of things. How can someone still, even if it’s basketball or entertainment or communications, turn that dream into a reality?

For one, they have to know the reality of that dream first. You can dream all day long. And that’s just what it will be, a dream, if you don’t put the components together to actually attain that dream. Now once you put all the components together to attain that dream, what if it still doesn’t work out? You still have to have an A, a B, a C, and a D plan. You have to be multitasking it out here as far as occupational type things. I think [you do it through] exposing kids to other dreams that are attainable, and not just a sports dream. I think they need to hear that also in messages broadcast on BET, all the networks that youth listen to. The networks can play a big part in always engaging, encouragement, [getting] things out to the youth. But what we see are videos. Who got the Lil Wayne video? Who got the rap song of this and that? And that actually is putting a falsified dream into these kids’ heads: ‘Oh, I can be a rapper. Lil Wayne did it from a poverty-stricken neighborhood. He sold drugs. So let me do it.’ And that’s the wrong way to think and we always have to be out there. Soon as they show that Lil Wayne video, ‘OK, you’re not Lil Wayne.’ It only happens to a certain few. I actually want to start a campaign, a national campaign, through my foundation, that you can be more than just an athlete or an entertainer or a rapper. I want to do that and screen my other movie, “Hoop Reality,” when I’m going out to these schools and talking to them. I can actually show them and say I didn’t make it into the NBA in this other movie but look at what I’m doing now. I’m starting a brand. So by doing that is showing these kids exactly if I can do it, you can do it. And I had the loftiest dream, making, being in the NBA. That means you’re getting your contract to where you don’t have to worry about a bill, no car breaking down, no child support payments late, or any of that. So showing those kids exactly what to do and how to do it through my movie and through what I’m about, I think that’s a good start.

Q: There’s been a lot of talk about the ‘Age of Obama’ and that a lot of young black men now have that role model to look up to. What’s your opinion on that? Do you think it’s too general of a statement to make? What does it mean to be in an ‘Age of Obama?’

I think that being in the ‘Age of Obama,’ the only thing it means is, yes, you can. If Obama did it, you can do it. And that’s being the president of the United States. And it took him years. He didn’t even think about running – it was a dream to him that once he made a decision that he wanted to do that, he went ahead and laid the gameplan down to do that and make it happen. All he needed was the people to buy into what he was selling us. And what he was selling us was, ‘If I can do it, you can do it, so get on the Obama train, get me in the White House and I’m not promising America that things are going to change overnight but we did make a change.’ And to generalize the situation to where is Obama being in the White House, is that a thing for black men to look up to, well, it doesn’t have to be a black man in the White House for me to look up to African-American men. I know many wealthy, healthy African-American men who are very successful in their lives. So being president just adds the bigger picture to it that, look, you can be president, and that’s the only thing I take from it. Because like I said he wasn’t in the White House when my dad was around and my dad was my role model and he sold drugs, did everything, and turned his life around. That’s who my role model is and I wanted to be better than. I don’t want to be like my dad. I want to be better than my dad.