East Side welcomes ETSU men’s hoops to ‘Slam into Reading’
Published 7:44 pm Monday, April 10, 2017
Star Photo/Curtis Carden ETSU basketball players and coaches pose with children following a skills contest.
Star Photo/Curtis Carden ETSU center Peter Jurkin walks with a students during a half court competition.
Star Photo/Curtis Carden A.J. Merriweather tells children about the importance of reading.
Star Photo/Curtis Carden East Side students and teachers play a pick up game of basketball while waiting for ETSU players to stop by.
Star Photo/Curtis Carden The crowd gives the ETSU players a hand Monday.
Star Photo/Curtis Carden A.J. Merriweather reads to children during Monday's event.
Star Photo/Curtis Carden Kanayo Obi-Rapu reads to students during East Side's event.
Star Photo/Curtis Students were all smiles as ETSU players read various books.
Star Photo/Curtis Carden The crowd gives their teachers a 10 during an early shoot-around.
Star Photo/Curtis Carden Fans were treated to some high-flying dunks from ETSU players.
Star Photo/Curtis Carden ETSU assistant coach Brian Collins hypes up the crowd before attempting a dunk.
Coming off a conference championship and bid into the NCAA tournament, it was hard to students to not get excited for the East Tennessee State University men’s basketball team.
Various members from the basketball program stopped by East Side Elementary to take part in “Slam into Reading Night” as part of the system’s parent involvement night.
“We do this throughout the city,” East Principal Travis Hurley said about parent involvement night. “I was fortunate enough to have a connection with ETSU basketball and I invited those guys to come over and they were more than willing to do an outreach for our kids. We appreciate them stopping by.”
ETSU assistant coaches Jason Shay and Brian Collins, along with players Peter Jurkin, A.J. Merriweather, Desonta Bradford, Devontavius Payne, Jason Williams, Issac Banks and Kanayo Obi-Rapu roused the crowd with a slam dunk show, skills competition, and half-court shots while stressing the importance of reading and education.
Merriweather, an ETSU’s representative for the recent NCAA dunk competition, encouraged students to follow their dreams and never let anyone tell them they can’t accomplish anything.
Following the action in the gym, players went to different classes to read to students and concluded the evening with an autograph session and some pickup games to the delight of attendees.
Seeing the smiles on all the children’s faces because of their role models visited the school made the night all worth it, according to the principal,
“These are Division I athletes who have to make a certain ACT score to get into college and you know they have to read very well to get in,” Hurley said. “Just the thought of them coming by to East Side to get our kids excited about reading and education itself is important. It’s like A.J. said, ‘don’t let anyone tell you, you can’t do anything’ and that’s so important for our kids here at East Side. It lets them know they can accomplish anything if they put their mind to it.”
