TicketsAug. 10, 2012
By Katie Baran
A pair of University of Cincinnati women's basketball players took some time out of their day to visit a girls' basketball day camp at the Price Hill Recreation Center on Wednesday afternoon. UC leading scorer and local Cincinnati product Dayeesha Hollins and senior center Lesha Dunn spoke on a variety of topics ranging from the importance of nutrition and education to the amount of dedication it takes to reach the collegiate basketball level.
The event was organized after Life Skills Coordinator Cassaundra Thorpe was contacted by camp organizer Coach `Spoon,' who was looking for role models to speak to his campers.
"Coach Spoon contacted me last week and asked if he could have some women's basketball players come and talk to his girls for his basketball camp," Thorpe said. "I reached out to Lesha and Day and they said they were available and they wanted to come down."
"I wanted to show the girls at camp that it's possible to become a college player and be a student," Spoon said. "The thing the girls really got out of it was that they never experience outreach from other girls, so to see them in real life not only as a basketball player, but as real people helps them see the bigger picture."
The duo spoke to a gym full of girls following a nutritionist, which sparked conversation about the importance of an athlete's diet.
"To this day, we still have meetings about nutrition, dieting and how to perform at our best," Hollins explained to 75 girls ranging in age from 6-14. "We had a tour of Kroger recently and went down every aisle and talked about what's good for you."
No less than five minutes into the presentation, the attentive group requested to see the Bearcats in action and watched in awe as Dunn made a layup and Hollins sunk a jump shot at an adjacent basket. It was an especially humbling experience for Hollins, who grew up in Cincinnati and graduated from Winton Woods High School.
"We're all from Cincinnati, so it makes it easier for me to come here and talk to them and encourage them to know that because I made it, it's possible for them to make it as well," Hollins said.
Dunn and Hollins continued to field a multitude of questions, including the required grade-point-average to be eligible to play in college and the amount of hours they practice each day, which led to the real question: Is it hard to concentrate on school and basketball?
"You have to be able to manage your time properly," Hollins explained. "Sometimes I write down an agenda and put down `practice' at this time, `homework' at this time, `eat' at this time, then I check each one off. You have to make sure you do your work in school and out of school when you're traveling on the road."
After a rousing round of applause, Dunn and Hollins concluded their presentation by distributing UC pom-poms to each camper and reflected on the importance of the event.
"It's important to come out to these events because if you instill something into someone when they're younger, then they'll grow into that and it'll be easier for them to adapt to certain situations," Dunn said. "They were asking regular questions about nutrition and when I was young, I didn't know anything about nutrition. I think it's a very crucial time in their lives. It's also good to have a lot of positive people around you to just have the opportunity to grow and learn new things about what you love."
"As a kid, I didn't have many people to come out and talk to me and tell me I can make it and what it takes to be where I am today," Hollins said. "Just to see that I made it from self motivation, it's easier for them to know they can make it as well."
"The overall picture, and the real reason I invited them was to show them that it's possible to fulfill a dream if you set your mind to something," Spoon said. "A lot of them come from single parents or low-income families, so having the (women's basketball) girls there, they get to witness it and get a testimony and it can inspire them to become better people."