School Kids Urged To B Positive High School Tourney Players Hold Court On Clean Living

Play hard, play smart, play together. Don’t use drugs or alcohol. Respect your teachers. Stay positive.

Elementary school children hear those messages all the time from parents and teachers.

But coming from the Manson girls basketball team - a qualifier for the State B tournament - those tenets sunk in a little more with 275 children at Windsor Elementary Thursday.

“I liked how they talked about how you don’t need drugs,” said fifth-grader Malarie Briggenan. “I’m not planning on doing drugs.

I want to keep healthy.”

The team’s visit was part of a second-year program organized by State B basketball tournament workers and the Spokane Women’s Referees Association. This year, 17 state qualifying boys and girls teams visited Spokane-area elementary schools on Wednesday and Thursday.

The team from Manson, a small town in northcentral Washington on the shore of Lake Chelan, stopped by after a morning practice.

The players admitted to being a little preoccupied with dreams about the tournament. But once the crowd warmed up and screamed about their love for basketball, 5-foot-4-inch sophomore guard Tara Zuluaga said she wanted to motivate them.

“I’m kind of short, as you can see, and I don’t have the best shot,” Zuluaga told the group, assembled in the gym. “But when it comes to basketball, I work my rear end off. If you work hard, and give it your heart and soul, you can do anything.”

After their words charged up the children, the team showed some skills with layup and passing drills.

Then they happily signed autographs.

Manson senior Katie Davis almost delayed the team bus because so many girls wanted her autograph.

The girls were awed by Davis, a 6-foot-1-inch player who averages 17.7 points a game. She’s considering playing college basketball at Oregon State or Arizona State.

Seeing the vibrant smiles of the children, Davis said the presentation reminded her of high school athletes visiting when she was in elementary school.

“It really feels good, but you don’t really realize until you get here how much of an impact we have,” Davis said. “It really adds to the whole state (basketball) experience.”

Besides the lessons about drugs and positive attitudes, the mere presence of the 12 girls gave fifth-grader Randi Albertson a dozen role models for what she can accomplish.

“Because my name is Randi, some boys say I’m a boy, and I don’t act like a girl because I love sports,” Albertson said. “It bothers me a little. This way, the girls can show the boys we actually can do these things.”

Afterward, Albertson stood in the middle of the gym with fifth-grader Heaven Stamm and gushed about the autographs from girls they’d never met or heard of before.

“This is so cool,” Albertson said. “I’m going to put it on my wall.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo