SAN QUENTIN, Calif. — The people who spend their days and nights at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center call the concrete ramp that connects the complex campus’s entrance to the prison yard “the big hill.”

When the Warriors walk down the big hill for their annual game against inmates, it officially starts what many on the inside consider their Super Bowl.

“This day keeps me straight,” one incarcerated person said.

“It gives us hope, it humanizes us,” said another.

Dressed uniformly in denim, whites and blues, inmates lined up to give their visitors handshakes and fist-bumps. Some asked for autographs. The players — the San Quentin Warriors — warmed up on the court in anticipation of their big game against Golden State’s “Green Team.”

Others scratched notes in their composition books, carried portable digital typewriters, and wore lanyards showing their face and name. They’re the San Quentin News contributors, tasked with chronicling history every day. Like everybody else in the facility, the Warriors’ visit is their main event.

Everyone at San Quentin did terrible things that cost them their freedom. But inside the prison yard humanity sprouts everywhere — on the court, at the dominos table, at chess boards, up and down chin-up bars, and within the prisoner journalists proud to capture it all.

“It’s given me a purpose,” said Edwin E. Chavez, 48, who joined the paper in 2018 and has been incarcerated for the past 26 years.

San Quentin Rehabilitation Center doesn’t resemble the Hollywood version of a prison or even the former version of itself — the one that housed Charles Manson and operated a gas chamber. The 2023 implementation of the California Model, designed to reimagine prison life as reforms aimed at rehabilitating the incarcerated and reducing recidivism, has elevated efforts to reimagine prison life.

Efforts like the basketball team, which requires players to be enrolled in a self-improvement program and be on good behavior to try out, and efforts like the San Quentin News.

“It teaches people empathy,” editor-in-chief Marcus Henderson said. “Journalism is telling someone else’s story. It translates to them becoming better people and better writers.”

Working for the paper, the 43-year-old Henderson said, teaches “transferable skills.” It publishes online and distributes 35,000 copies monthly to each prison in California. Stories are presented in English and Spanish, covering prison policy changes, sports, happenings around the prison and first-person essays. Established in 1940, the award-winning newspaper’s goal is to report on rehabilitative efforts in California prisons to increase public safety and advance social justice.

For incarcerated journalists, researching materials that are brought in, thinking critically, telling stories and interviewing people can be therapeutic.

On Henderson’s first day at San Quentin in 2014, the youth offender reunited with a former cell-mate, Rahsaan Thomas. Thomas, a producer and host of the Pulitzer-nominated “Ear Hustle” podcast, told Henderson to cover a baseball game out in the yard between prisoners and visitors. That never would’ve happened in the facilities where Henderson was incarcerated before — past prisons he’d been at were much less livable and would never allow outsiders.

“He told me, ‘Remember, you’re capturing history,’” Henderson said of Thomas.

At Thomas’s instruction, Henderson interviewed the visitors, which was a major step in his rehabilitation process.

“The interviews brought my humanity back,” Henderson said. “I hadn’t talked to outside people in 15 years.”

Henderson has been editor-in-chief for the past five years, after working up the ranks from the baseball beat. He covered the COVID-19 pandemic and now leads a staff of about 15.

Last Wednesday, the big event to cover was Golden State’s 10th visit to the institution. The tradition began in 2012, after Kirk Lacob met Bill Epling, the Silicon Valley executive who has organized hundreds of games between inmates and outsiders for years.

On the court, the Golden State “Green Team” dominated, taking an all-time 6-4 series lead. Lacob, former All-Star Jerry Stackhouse and player development coach Noel Hightower paced Golden State as current Warriors watched from the sidelines. Moses Moody mingled with friends he’s made in his three trips to the facility. Brandin Podziemski signed autographs. Rookie Quentin Post went 3-0 in chess and assistant coach Anthony Vereen played dominos with inmates.