Have you, by chance, ever wondered what would happen if every DC Public Schools student between pre-kindergarten and fifth grade got a free basketball? Get ready to find out.
Nearly 30,000 basketballs will be delivered to DCPS kids in the coming weeks, as part of the “District Dribble” program—part of Monumental Sports & Entertainment’s District of Play initiative, an effort to engage youth in sports, community, and lifelong physical activity in partnership with the DC government.
Of course, as with any government program, pulling off District Dribble invites a unique set of logistical challenges. Chiefly, per Monumental CEO Ted Leonsis at a press conference Monday, “We’ve got to blow up the basketballs, if you can believe it.” That’s why, on Wednesday, 300 volunteers lined the concessions hall at Capital One Arena, armed with electric pumps with which to inflate 10,000 NBA regulation-sized basketballs.
Why basketballs? “Sports can positively impact students, whether it’s physical health, mental health, emotional health, social skills, and then, most importantly, academically as well,” DCPS Chancellor Lewis Ferebee said Monday. “Each year, I remind our families that the valedictorians and salutatorians in DCPS and probably across the region are typically student-athletes. And I think it says a lot about the relationship between sports and athletics and how students perform in and outside of the classroom.”
The point, Leonsis added, is not to stack the Wizards’ 2035 roster. “We want people to have the right perspective about sports—more about teamwork, more about coachability, more about discipline, more about their physical health, more about their mental health, when they can be in pursuit of a higher calling, a group victory instead of a ‘me’ or ‘I’ mentality.” In fact, Leonsis still reflects fondly on his first basketball, which was given to him by a coach when he was growing up in Brooklyn: “I slept with it a couple of nights.”
Volunteers signed up to inflate basketballs between 10 AM and 6 PM Wednesday, according to Monumental. The goal: Finish 30 balls per pump, per hour. I joined a group of people who spotted the opportunity on a local Listserv; they patiently taught me how to use the noisy equipment (I had not touched a basketball since my two-season stint in an elementary school rec league, during the totality of which I scored a whopping one point—a girl on the opposing team pushed me and I made one of the foul shots.) One woman shared that she was part of an early batch of furloughed USAID employees. “There’s only so much Netflix I can watch,” she told me, sticking a needle into a floppy heap of red-and-black rubber. After dribbling each ball to confirm its sufficient inflation, we laid them up into massive cardboard boxes, which more volunteers carted across the arena and into designated delivery trucks. Across the space, everyone chatted warmly—loudly, over the jovial racket of the pumps.
On Thursday, these trucks will make their first stop at Browne Education Campus in Northeast, where Leonsis, Ferebee, Mayor Muriel Bowser, and Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker will dole out the first 300 basketballs to students. “I’m sure we will deliver thousands and thousands of balls and someone will write on social media, ‘They’re fibbing—my son or daughter didn’t get the balls yet,'” Leonsis said. “And we all guarantee and promise that we’ll have all of the balls, and they’ll get to the people, and it’ll be within a month—six weeks at the outside.”
In addition to the District Dribble effort, District of Play has committed to several infrastructure projects, including a new street hockey rink, local court renovations, and an 8-year plan for citywide playground development. They’ve also vowed to fund youth sports programming and scholarships, provide students with transportation to ice rinks, and support coaching clinics, among other investments. “The giving away of basketballs was one of those ingredient, fun things that I think will have a lasting memory,” Leonsis said. Watch your head, DC!
