Basketball gives time to help local youth

By Dan Williams

Daily Sports Writer

Josh Moore, Michigan basketball's new beast in the paint, has the perfect body structure to be a top notch NCAA center. Coincidentally, his monstrous frame also translates pretty well into yard work.

The basketball team spent their Saturday morning doing a little landscaping for the Avalon housing rehabilitation project. The work was just one of many charities the team gets involved with throughout the year.

And while it may be hard to picture LaVell Blanchard with his sweat pants rolled up to his knees, lugging around a wheelbarrow of mulch, event organizer Vincent Dent said the players weren't timid about getting their hands dirty.

"They were all hard-working and seemed very serious," Dent said. "At one point we had to tell them to slow down some."

The basketball team completed the last step in a charity campaign to upgrade the Arbordale apartments in Ann Arbor. Previous groups had been involved in renovating the inside of the structure, and the Wolverines finished the exterior work by planting trees, scrubs, and flowers.

"This used to be an apartment complex that was inhabited by drug users and drug dealers," Dent said. "Now it's a beautiful property."

For the team, the benefits were twofold.

There's the obvious satisfaction of helping underprivileged children.

"It does a lot for their self-esteem," Coach Brian Ellerbe said. "There's a sense of pride."

But junior Leon Jones also said that it provided a chance for the team to come together away from a basketball setting.

"It's kind of a way to get out here and bond with each other," Jones said.

After the finishing touches were put on the gardening, the players and local children convened on a nearby basketball court for a very unofficial game of knockout.

While playing on a seven foot hoop probably won't aid Michigan's preparation for the upcoming season, the children were estatic to be out on the court with the Wolverines.

"If (the children) get a chance to meet their hero," Chris Young said, "that makes us happy when they're happy."