Platform to boost sport is Fab idea - Flournoy
HE is an adopted Geordie rubbing shoulders with the biggest names in global basketball - but Fabulous Flournoy will never forget the value of grassroots sport, writes SIMON RUSHWORTH.
In the week the former Newcastle Eagles player-coach returned to work at reigning NBA champions Toronto Raptors, Flournoy has become the latest star to support community sport.
Tyneside-based GiveToLocal has added basketball to the growing roster of sports able to access its app-based incentivised giving platform.
Flournoy believes any scheme able to benefit grassroots sport can make a valuable contribution to communities struggling to adapt to the post-coronavirus environment.
The coach who won everything during a stellar career with Newcastle Eagles in the British Basketball League before heading to the NBA last summer said: “I became involved with grassroots basketball as a kid because I wanted a pair of trainers.
“I did not know anything about sport or anything about basketball but one day I saw all my friends wearing this new kit and trainers and I felt like I was missing out.
“That is when I joined Project Pride in The Bronx. It was the best decision I ever made.”
All around him chaos reigned in a community blighted by drugs, gangs and violent crime.
Flournoy was one of the lucky few. His older brother was killed in a nightclub at the age of 22 and his younger brother survived a bullet to the chest.
However, if friends and family found it impossible to escape a devastating cycle of pain and destruction, Flournoy had found basketball. It was to prove his salvation.
He added: “Project Pride - as the name suggests - was a grassroots basketball club established to inspire inner-city kids.
“It encouraged them to stay off the streets, stay safe and stay focused. They did not turn anyone away and they focused on the kids who were most at risk. “
Grassroots basketball was Flournoy’s gateway to a better school, a good college and, ultimately, a career which has taken him all over the world.
He said: “Grassroots sport was a huge part of my development.
“It taught me how to communicate, how to be productive, how to be independent and how to work with others. They were life lessons I still use now.
“It was also an escape from the crime and the negativity. Project Pride was a safe haven for me.
“When I was asked to check out GiveToLocal it brought home to me just how important a role grassroots sport continues to play at the heart of local communities.”
Flournoy added: “My own experience of grassroots sport is why I was always so heavily invested in what Paul and Sam Blake were doing in the community during my time with Newcastle,.
“The volunteers and the coaches within grassroots sport just want to make a difference where they can, when they can. You are not going to be able to help everyone but you can always help someone.
“I guess that is what the guys at GiveToLocal believe.”
■ FOR more information on GiveToLocal and to find out how it can help your grassroots sport club, visit www.givetolocal.com.