Children and athletes unite over reading
Published: Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Updated: Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Fourth-grader T.J. Griffin had his eyes glued to the court Saturday as Taj Gibson, his favorite USC basketball player, dunked the ball through the hoop.
“We’re their biggest fans,” T.J. said about the basketball team.
T.J., who attends Vermont Elementary School, was one of 50 students who earned free tickets to Saturday’s game against Oregon State through Phi Kappa Psi’s new Slam Dunk Scholars program, which encourages area children to read.
For the past five weeks, members of Phi Psi, along with a few student athletes, visited the school every Friday at 8 a.m. to read to students in 20 to 30 classrooms.
“It was pretty good to see other guys, other athletes, come out and help with the kids. It made a big impact,” basketball team captain and Phi Psi member Gibson said. “The kids really lit up when we came in.”
Other athletes involved in the program are Phi Psi pledges Everson Griffin, Daniel Harper and Spencer Spiegel, as well as Marcus Simmons, who is not a member of the fraternity.
The top 50 students out of the 500 students in the program read an average of 172 pages each to win tickets to Saturday’s game.
“It’s not simply reading to the kids,” said Tyler Vanstory, co-coordinator of the program and a junior majoring in business. “We try to get out there and engage them in discussions and encourage them.”
When talks of starting the program began last summer, Vanstory said he and fellow coordinators, Jason Lipsitz and Alex London, knew Phi Psi could make use of the athletes affiliated with the fraternity.
“We realized with all these athletes it would be really cool to make a tie between academics and athletics.” Vanstory said. “If they put the same effort in sports as they do in academics, the possibilities are limitless.”
For many of the students, including T.J., Saturday’s game was their first time at a USC athletic event.
Although T.J. said he was happy to win the tickets, he also enjoyed the reading involved with the program.
“I liked reading all the fun books and going to the library to get some more,” he said.
T.J. also said he plans to continue reading regularly, even though the program is over for the semester.
Parents said they were pleased with the program’s impact on their kids.
“It really worked because he was really enthusiastic and proud when he won the tickets to the game,” T.J.’s father, Tim Griffin, said.
Although only about a dozen students attended the game, Vanstory said he was proud of the overall success of the program and is looking for ways to improve and expand.
“Obviously we would have loved to have more kids. That’s where we’re going to have to revisit our strategy for next year,” Vanstory said.
Phi Psi President Alex Fiance said future goals for the program include bringing it to other schools, getting the football team involved and having more consistent volunteer support from other fraternities and sororities.
“The real key is continuing next year so the younger kids have something to aspire to, even on a small scale like this,” Fiance said.
Gibson said the program was a reflection of Phi Psi’s effort to reach out to the community.
“I’m just another guy in the Phi Psi house branching out and helping kids in the inner city,” he said. “All the credit goes to the Phi Psi house.”