Skip to main content

Spreading Goodwill On Court and Off

From the Ronald McDonald House to tutoring kids, athletes find they can make a positive impact on the community off the field

Every year, the Duke women's basketball team sponsors the Ronald McDonald Classic, a four-team tournament whose proceeds benefit the Ronald McDonald House in Durham, where children prepare for or recuperate from operations at Duke Hospital.

And every year, Duke selects a young person from the Ronald McDonald House to sit with the team on the bench as an "honorary coach."

"(Three years ago) the child that was assigned to us just really had an impact on us," coach Gail Goestenkors said. "He was just the greatest kid, really positive. He had a great experience. His mom wrote us a really nice, long letter afterwards about how all he talks about now is the Duke women's basketball team.

"When he left Duke, he was leaving to go home to die. They had done everything they could. But after so many months, he recovered."

The boy continued to send letters to the team and last year, during the regular season, he returned to Duke the night before "some real major surgery," recalled Ronald McDonald House executive director Norenne Strong.

"I took him to the game and this kid knows no boundaries," Strong recalled. "He gets into Cameron and the first thing he does is go sit on the bench and wait for Coach G. And I'll tell you what, when she got there, she gave him the biggest hug."

The women's basketball team gets involved in a handful of projects, including an outreach program in Durham schools called Girls and Women in Sports (G-WHIZ), and has won the governor's award for community service. But they are not the exception. Even though Duke's athletes are among the most time-strapped individuals in the student body, most choose to make community service a priority in their lives, said Kerstin Kimel, the women's lacrosse coach.

"They really enjoy it," said Kimel, whose team members are involved in a number of tutoring projects. "I think a lot of the kids who come to Duke in general are involved in community service, and I don't think athletes are an exception to that. I think what makes it special about our athletes is that these kids, a lot of them are personally blessed, they've been given great opportunities in their life, and they recognize that.

"Athletes have so little free time for themselves; for them to sacrifice the little free time they have to give back to the community, I think, says a lot about the kind of kids who are involved in our athletic program."

Be it the soccer team's involvement with local youth groups, the football team's visits to the hospital or the men's basketball team's involvement with the children's hospital, Duke athletes and their coaches are committed to making a difference in the community.

In November, the sports promotions office hired former Duke basketball player Robert Brickey (Class of 1990) as a community outreach coordinator. His role is to bridge the gap between the community and Duke athletics.

"Sometimes Duke can be an isolated community," he said. "You find out what goes on in the parameters of Duke University, which is easy, but to enter into the community - where a lot more things go on - is part of the education we all need, not just student-athletes, but the Duke University community as a whole."

One place where the student-athletes are particularly well-received is Duke Hospital, where an athlete's visit brightens the day for young patients.

"I think [the athletes] are positive role models for kids," said inside linebackers coach Brad Sherrod, who helps coordinate Duke football's community service. "I think they really appreciate those guys coming out, because they see them on TV a lot and they see the names of the players."

Associate men's basketball coach Johnny Dawkins agrees that the impact student-athletes can have on young people is amazing.

"It really does brighten a young person's day," said Dawkins, who was a regular visitor to the hospital during his playing days at Duke. "It does a world of good whenever you can do that. Just from my experience - I did it when I was in the pros - it was an unbelievable experience."

The men's basketball team also is involved with Read with the Blue Devils, a community outreach program in which student-athletes from just about every sport at Duke travel to schools and encourage local students to read.

"It started out with basketball," sports promotions director Mike Sobb said. "They make visits to the schools about three or four times a year. There's 20 schools and we've got about 70 or 80 athletes involved. The hardest part is juggling around schedules, the logistics."

Sobb said the youngsters really respond to Duke's student-athletes.

"I can sit there all day and talk to them, but they're not going to listen as much to me as they're going to with someone they've seen" on TV, he said.

Brickey looks forward to even more involvement between the athletes and the community.

"I've got some ideas. One of the things I'm going to do is sit down with some of the coaches and get a feel for what they want to do. We've got some coaches who really want to do some good things. We'll work on it over the summer, so by next fall we can implement some ideas."

Goestenkors said working with the community helps both her and her team keep their feet on the ground.

"When you go to the house and see these little kids who have cancer, that are in chemotherapy, that may not live, that don't have hair, that are really struggling but they're still so happy and they're still so positive, it really puts things in perspective as to how lucky we really are."

Goestenkors, who is also a Big Sister, added that getting away from her day job can be a relief.

"You get so caught up in the team and goals and winning a national championship," she said, "that whenever I go to see (my Little Sister), it helps me to see that there's so much more to life. I feel like she does me more favors than I do her."

Written by Kevin Lees.