September 21, 1998
University of Washington athletes to share stories with kids in Tacoma
University of Washington basketball stars Jamie Redd and Donald Watts will travel to Tacoma later this month to talk with kids about the way sports has shaped their lives and given them educational opportunities.
Redd, Watts and Ralph Bayard, senior associate UW athletic director, will be at the Gonyea Branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Pierce County on Sept. 29 for a free dinner for youth and parents. The athletes will talk about the role athletics has played in their success and show highlights from last season’s basketball campaign. Redd led the women’s team to the NCAA tournament, where the Huskies lost in the first round to Purdue, while Watts and the men’s team suffered a last-second loss to Connecticut in the Sweet 16 round of the tournament.
“It is our mission to be involved in community service as much as we can be,” Bayard said. Giving youths the chance to talk with prominent college athletes, he said, could help keep kids in school and out of trouble.
“They can convey the message that, ‘If you want to be where I am, this is what you have to do,’ ” Bayard said.
The event is part of a collaborative effort by the UW’s Graduate School of Public Affairs, Department of Psychology and the Husky Athletic Department, along with the Pierce County Boys and Girls Clubs and Juvenile Court and the Tacoma public schools. The effort now is focused on enhancing programs in the Boys & Girls Clubs and the schools. Financing comes from state and federal juvenile justice money administered by the state Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development.
“Through the Boys & Girls Clubs and the Tacoma School District, the resources of the University of Washington are being used to benefit the youth and the community,” said Floyd Brown, who is operations director for the Human Services Policy Center in the Graduate School of Public Affairs and is the primary coordinator for the program.
Rick Guild, operations director for the five-branch Boys & Girls Clubs of Pierce County, has been working with the UW group for about a year on a training program for coaches “to give them the tools to work with kids who don’t have a lot of guidance and a lot of discipline.”
Guild sees the association with the UW as a boon to recruiting coaches and volunteers who are interested in working with kids. Having collegiate athletes such as Redd and Watts talk to the kids “adds an emphasis on education as well,” he said.
The idea of having successful UW athletes share their stories with kids is part of a larger project that involves teaching sports coaches how to bolster kids’ self-esteem, said Frank Smoll, a UW psychology professor.
But while the dinner event will focus on kids, Smoll believes it will be important for their parents too. “The message parents will be getting is how kids can benefit from sport and how important it is for them to be involved.”
Guild said he expects 60 kids from the other four branches and 75 to 100 from the Gonyea branch to attend the dinner, and transportation will be provided. With parents and others from the community, the crowd could exceed 500, he said.
###
For more information, contact:
Brown at (206) 616-1833 or floydb@u.washington.edu.
Smoll at (206) 543-4612 or smoll@u.washington.edu.
Bayard at (206) 543-5265 or rbay@u.washington.edu.
Guild at (253) 572-8440.
NOTE: The dinner will be from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sept. 29 at the Gonyea Branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Pierce County, 5136 N. 26th St., Tacoma.
