Making a Difference

May 14, 2003

As co-presidents of Duke's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee for the past two years, tennis player Katie Granson and rower Christina Richardson represented their school at several Atlantic Coast Conference functions and often came away feeling their athletics department trailed its peers in the area of community involvement by varsity athletes.

So they decided to do something about it.

Granson had the initial brainstorm to offer a free youth sports clinic to Durham middle schoolers, and Richardson along with several other SAAC leaders helped Granson turn the idea into Duke's popular Winter Fun Day, which attracted over 100 sixth graders to campus each of the last two years.

For their efforts, Granson and Richardson recently were named recipients of the ACC's annual Top Six For Service awards, which are presented to six student-athletes at all nine conference schools. Each institution sets its own criteria for the awards; at Duke, the plaques go to athletes who demonstrate dedication to community service and outreach programs.

Joining Granson and Richardson as Blue Devil honorees for 2003 are football players Chris Douglas and Matt Brooks, wrestler Tom Cass and field hockey player Emily Sinkhorn. Douglas also was heavily involved with SAAC's Winter Fun Day, Brooks and Sinkhorn helped make Duke's Project Share effort at Christmas a success, and Cass has been an active volunteer coach, tutor and youth mentor.

For each of the last two years, Winter Fun Day targeted sixth graders at Rogers Herr Middle School in Durham. Over 120 youngsters attended this year's event on Feb. 10, when they received instruction in almost every varsity sport at Duke, were treated to a pizza dinner and attended the Duke-Virginia women's basketball game.

Extensive organization and planning were required to pull off the activity, as Granson, Richardson and their SAAC cohorts enlisted the support of fellow athletes, encouraged their coaches to rearrange practice times so they could participate, lined up the use of facilities and promoted the event at Rogers Herr.

Sixth graders were targeted, said associate athletics director Jacki Silar, because that seems to be a critical age when youngsters can make a decision to get more heavily involved in sports instead of drugs, crime or other harmful activities.

"I just felt like the Duke athletic community needed to do something together to give back to the community, because we're so lucky with all the opportunities we've had," said Granson, a senior starter for the third-ranked women's tennis program. "I feel like athletics has opened so many doors for us, and if we could do something that might get kids interested in sports, maybe they would have some of the same opportunities we had."

Winter Fun Day featured 15 different sports stations, five apiece in the Wilson Rec Center, the IM Building and the Yoh Football Center. Athletes from each sport manned the stations and interacted with the middle schoolers in teaching drills and offering advice.

Richardson and Douglas both were at stations at the Yoh Center's indoor agility area. Richardson brought in some of her team's erg machines, which are similar to rowing machines at fitness clubs, and had the kids try them out in simulating a 50-meter race. At the football station, Douglas put the youths through footwork drills, a relay race, ball-catching practice and tackling drills with a tackling dummy.

Douglas, one of the top running backs in the ACC, had the opportunity to benefit from the Charlotte Hornets' outreach efforts by attending a few NBA games when he was growing up in Sherrills Ford, N.C. He hopes events such as the Winter Fun Day left a positive impression on the participants.

"I think this brings a little more reality to the kids," he noted. "It's a little far-fetched for a kid to think he can play for the Hornets one day. That's a great dream but the odds are the kid won't end up doing that. But a lot of people have an opportunity to go to college, and even if you don't make it (as a scholarship athlete), you could still have an opportunity to walk on, like Matt Brooks, who's an integral part of our team. It just brings everything a little closer to where the kids are headed.

"Plus, I think it helps students realize that college is a good thing, because a lot of kids feel like they might not need to go to school. What good do they get out of having a college degree? So we talk about some of those things, we talk about some of the pressures that exist in being an athlete and in school. Some of our athletes serve as role models to kids in the Durham community, so maybe we were able to get some of these points across to them where others might not have been able to."

Douglas was a SAAC member for the second year and will be back with the group next fall prior to his December graduation. Along with community service, SAAC also has focused on enhancing the experience of Duke athletes by meeting regularly with the administration to address key issues. SAAC suggestions have led to the athletic department making more laptop computers available for road trips, better access to the department's computer cluster, an improved flow of activity through the training rooms during hectic afternoon hours, and the hiring of a life skills coordinator this year in Beth Howland.

The group, which meets monthly and features a rep from each squad, also has been treated to various guest speakers in sports psychology, career development and NCAA legislation for the purpose of passing along valuable information to the rest of their teams. "It's about more than being an athlete in competition," said Richardson. "You feel like you have a voice. And it's something I want to do after Duke, get involved in athletic administration and community interaction."

Brooks and Sinkhorn aided another community outreach effort, the Project Share endeavor in which the athletics department adopted two Durham families and provided clothing and other Christmas gifts for 12 people. Brooks was active in encouraging his fellow football players - Duke's biggest program with 85 players - to contribute to the cause, which raised over $1,400 in donations. Sinkhorn was involved with the purchase, wrapping and delivery of the gifts.

"It was really good because the team got involved," said Brooks. "We started just asking for a couple of bucks and we had guys dropping in 10 and 20 bucks. It was great to see the team come together to raise money for this, something everybody agreed was a great cause."

"It was really fun," added Sinkhorn. "It was like a shopping spree but you knew it was for a good purpose. Hopefully that contributed to those families having a good Christmas."

Sinkhorn also was on the planning committee for the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life event held at Duke on Apr. 11. The 18-hour walk-a-thon around East Campus raised over $20,000 thanks to successful student support.

"We had a lot of fraternity and sorority teams and other living group teams," Sinkhorn said. "The Duke swimming team got involved, and they ran the whole time and were the most spirited. And our football team came and made a great entrance. I just like being a part of the community and getting to meet different people, especially ones out of my age group. That's what I really enjoyed."

Cass served as a tutor through the local school system, helped coach a high school wrestling team in his hometown of Las Vegas when he was on sabbatical last fall, and occasionally volunteered at wrestling practice for Riverside High School in Durham. Last summer he was a teacher and mentor for Capital Breakthrough in Raleigh, an intensive summer school experience for at-risk youths ages 11-14. He taught English and incorporated improvisational acting, dance and martial arts in the program.

Cass, like Brooks, Sinkhorn and many other Duke athletes, also participated in the school's anchor outreach program, Read with the Blue Devils, a decade-long effort to promote literacy and goal-setting in Durham Public Schools. "I had a blast," Cass said. "The kids always react well and enjoy hearing us talk about what we do.As a wrestler, I always seemed to get a question about what moves I do off the rope."

Several Blue Devils have gotten involved in tutoring local kids through a Duke education course. One of those is Douglas, who has continued to visit elementary and middle schools the last two years even after completing the class. Whether he's facing 200 sixth graders in the school auditorium or one student who needs help, Douglas enjoys the interaction and says outreach efforts are important.

"It just feels like you really make a difference," Douglas said. "It does seem more impactful when it's on a one-on-one basis than if you are in front of a whole group of students. When you are one-on-one with a kid and you see that light bulb go off in the kid's face like he understands it now, you get a certain gratification from that because you feel like you impacted their life and possibly turned things around for them.

"Now they understand something they didn't before, so now maybe they keep going where they might have given up. So you don't know how many doors you just opened for that young mind you helped. It's very rewarding. That's why I enjoy doing it and I hope I can keep it up in some kind of mentorship program in the future, even if I'm just in a regular job."

Players Mentioned

Katie Granson

Duke information