Character crew comes to Sage Point
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald. Big Bend Community College basketball players Colin Ahmann, Jai Jai Ely, Garret Wendt, Austin Henry hold up letters spelling “Crew” at a rally at Sage Point Elementary on Tuesday.
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald. Viking basketball player Zach Shepherd gives fifth graders at Sage Point Elementary School a round of high fives after a successful dunk.
MOSES LAKE — The Character Crew — The Big Bend Community College men’s basketball team — came to Sage Point Elementary School on Tuesday to dunk a few balls and tell kids about the important of being kind, honest, respectful, and responsible.
“It’s about treating others the way we want to be treated,” said Blake Pittman, a first-year player from Ephrata.
Pittman described arriving at Big Bend Community College and being scared because he didn’t know anyone there.
He pointed to his teammates.
“These guys have good character,” Pittman said. “Now I have a lot of friends.”
Mark Poth, coach of the BBCC Vikings, told the gathered grade school students the Character Crew was a club they could join, and he showed them his green “Character Crew” bracelet that they could wear too.
“It reminds me of some of things I need to do to be a person of good character.”
Poth said crew stands for Choices, Respect, Excellence, and Will to Win, and each of these points was brought home to the kids at Sage Point by a player who told his own personal story and how it related.
Jai Jai Ely, a sophomore from Skyline, Idaho, in describing what “excellence” means, talked about how important it was to set goals, and then work toward them. He focused on individual responsibility, and that the Sage Point students were capable of doing anything they set their minds to.
He told them a saying he once learned, one that inspires him every day.
“If it is to be,” he said, “it’s up to me.”
The Vikings men’s basketball team is visiting several elementary schools in Moses Lake this week and presenting this half-hour show on good character as part of its outreach and community service efforts.
“Well, this is a way we have decided to give back to the community,” Poth said. “We share a message of character, being responsible, making good choices. We can sacrifice a bit of practice time to do this.”
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.