Coaches’ lessons valuable for life on and off the court

About 60 area high school students got some pointers on basketball moves and keeping their grades up during an event at George Washington High School on Saturday.

The three-hour program took place in the school’s gymnasium in recognition of Omega Psi Phi’s annual Achievement Day. The organization, along with the GWHS Basketball Booster Club, sponsored the event where Barry Mayo, Chatham High School’s head boys basketball coach, and other area coaches taught the students how to become better players.

The coaches stressed the importance of being stars not just on the court, but in the classroom as well. Avoid making C’s, D’s and F’s, Mayo told the aspiring athletes.

“You need to get rid of them because if you don’t get rid of them (bad grades), they’ll get rid of you,” Mayo said.

Between 50 and 60 students, most of them in grades 9-12, from GWHS and high schools in Pittsylvania County attended the program.

Dan River head basketball coach Jacob Gruse, associate head basketball coach Ben Elliott, GWHS head junior varsity and assistant varsity basketball coach David Lee, and other area coaches showed the students offensive and defensive basketball moves to improve their game.

Mayo is frank with the teens about their chances of becoming basketball stars or receiving a coveted basketball scholarship. Not everyone is going to get a scholarship, he tells them.

Mayo, a chaplain in Omega Psi Phi, gives the children insight on SATs, earning good grades and how to apply for a scholarship. The Danville chapter of Omega Psi Phi, an African-American fraternity founded in 1911 at Howard University in Washington, offers four scholarships per year to students from GWHS, Pittsylvania County high schools and those in South Boston, said Larry Patterson, president of the Danville chapter.

Patterson said the Achievement Day event is an opportunity to draw young people to the message of academic improvement and accomplishment.

“It give us a chance to get their attention and sit down and talk to them,” Patterson said. “Our focus is on education.”

Without an education, there is no foundation to build upon, Patterson said. A student’s chance of becoming a pro basketball player is small. The number of business professionals and other types of workers dwarfs that of pro basketball players, Patterson said.

That doesn’t keep two program participants from aiming high. Gibson Middle School students Jamal Fitzgerald and Tylik Williams, both 13, said they want to be pro basketball players.

Fitzgerald wants to play for the Denver Nuggets, while Williams said he’d like to play for the Chicago Bulls. But they said they also got the message about keeping their grades up.

“If (you) can put your mind to playing basketball, you can do anything you want,” Williams said he learned from the event.