AUBURN — Well, these guys don’t look so old.
It was youth versus experience Friday night as a group of Edward Little High School faculty faced off against a team of students on the basketball court. At the start of it, the teachers and administrators would have you believe they’re all washed up and surely no match for the young legs on the other side of the court.
“I’m just glad there are plenty of faculty here,” Assistant Principal Sarah Deluca said, “because I’m not going to be able to breathe after a couple times up and down the court.”
Call it a psych-out. It was Deluca who opened the scoring with a shot from outside the circle just a minute into the game and the wily teachers never slowed at all. English teacher Nathaniel Stowe was dropping shots left and right and mild-mannered social studies instructor Greg Latuscha was scoring all over the place.
Welcome to school, kids.
Of course, it’s all for charity. In its third year, the teachers versus students bout raises money for the LunchBox, a nine-year-old program that brings food and clean water to orphaned and vulnerable children in South Africa. It’s a cause everybody had in mind, but in case they got too serious about the game, runner Moninda Marube was there to remind them.
“Life in Africa is kind of like the life of an antelope,” he told the audience at halftime. “You’re always running away from something. An antelope doesn’t have time to eat peacefully. That is the kind of life I was leading.”
Marube came to the area from Kenya in 2010, escaping poverty, corruption and human trafficking as he literally ran his way to freedom.
With that view in mind, the faculty and student body at EL has been hard at work raising money, in a variety of ways, to help those who are still in harm’s way. According to teacher Jen Braunfels, a key organizer of the LunchBox program, the students versus staff basketball game has been growing in popularity each year. In previous years, she said, it was hard to get enough students to field a team.
“This year we had something like 30 of them who wanted to play,” Braunfels said.
The students, it seems, are there to raise money for the cause and to have fun. When it comes to a spirit of competition, it’s the teachers have got to watch.
“A lot of them are former basketball players,” Braunfels said. “So they feel like they have something to prove.”
And prove it they did. Although the skill and energy of the student team was apparent all night — students Bryce Gibson and Austin Cox seemed to score every time they touched the ball — age and experience prevailed. When it wasn’t Stowe or Latuscha leading the charge, it was guidance counselor Christine Cifelli or tech Brad Peck.
By the end of the first quarter, the Fantastic Faculty was up 12-7 and by halftime, their lead was even greater.
Not that winning is everything, mind you. Once the Fantastic Faculty had the game in hand, it was easier to remember that it’s all for charity and for fostering friendships between the students and their teachers.
“Any time the students get to see a different side of us,” Deluca said, “it’s a good thing.”
Dozens of fans attended the game, cheering for both sides evenly. According to Braunfels, all proceeds collected at the door will be turned over to the LunchBox program.
While working hard to help others, Marube reminded the students, they should also consider their own futures. With their bellies full and with their good educations, they shouldn’t have to run like antelopes in Africa. Instead, Marube said, they could run in the opposite direction, toward their futures.
“The question is, what are you running toward?” Marube said. “Make your lives worthwhile.”
mlaflamme@sunmediagroup.net
Send questions/comments to the editors.
