Starting the season by winning 12 of their first 14 games and balancing school with a busy six-day-a-week practice schedule, the Sinclair Tartan Pride men’s basketball team manages to still find time to volunteer and give back to the community in a variety of different ways.
Recently, the team spent time with veterans at the Dayton Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Players visited each floor, spending time with veterans and their families.
In some cases, veterans related to players with their own experiences.
“One vet told us his story of how he had been captured and held prisoner for 22 months,” freshman player Darrell Bullock said. “You’d think he would have given up hope, but he was rescued. He was telling us if we live right, we’ll live long.”
Head Coach Jeff Price said it’s the small connections the players make with the veterans that really matter.
“Sometimes you see this stuff on TV; with our guys, we try to get them face to face,” he said. “It’s one thing to read about it, it’s another to stand beside it.”
Freshman player Deiontay Walters said many of the veterans wished players luck during the season.
“A lot of them seemed really happy to talk to us,” Walters said. “A few said they’d come out to watch a game.”
Apart from visiting at the VA, the team has also volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club of Dayton, a youth organization for 6 to 18 year olds. Last November, players served a Thanksgiving dinner to some of the children who then got to meet the team up close.
“A lot of them just viewed us as someone older who was taking time out of his day to do something good for someone else,” sophomore player Corbin Bates said. “We all really enjoyed it.”
Bullock agrees.
“You never know what someone’s circumstances are at home — serving them felt good,” he said.
The team also works with Generation Dayton, a networking organization of local business professionals hosted by the Dayton Chamber of Commerce. Every May, players and more than 150 members of Generation Dayton perform acts of community service in Dayton that range from painting fences, cleaning up downtown by sweeping streets and helping to renovate buildings.
“We put our young guys next to professionals, it helps them to interact and to network,” Price said.
Other charitable events the team has been a part of in the past range from answering phones for the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s fundraising telethon, to participating in the Dayton Heart Walk for the Dayton Children’s Hospital.
The team also manages to give back on the court as well, by helping the local Oakwood Youth Basketball League, with some players periodically acting as assistant coaches for kids in the third through sixth grade.
First year team member C.J. Reed said he gets a lot of enjoyment from working with the younger players.
“We help them with fundamentals like passing and dribbling, mostly the basics. They love it,” he said.
Price said a few of the Oakwood players have attended Sinclair games, while some of the Sinclair players have gone to Oakwood games to cheer on the youth.
“They become connected, and that’s what’s important,” he said. “Our players are the same type and quality of athletes you see on TV, but here at Sinclair you can get up close to our athletes; you can get close to the court and the action.”
Bullock looks at it as a way to help them.
“We’re just trying to get them better, trying to get them to the next level, just like we’re trying to do,” Bullock said.
During 2014, Price said his team has every intention of continuing to be as successful off the court as they’ve been on it.