L.O.V.E. & BASKETBALL

Celebrity basketball game

L.O.V.E. Is The Answer and Mentoring Academics Athletics & Partnership (M.A.A.P.) have formed a Strategic Partnership to co-produce highly impactful, meaningful, and fun “L.O.V.E. & Basketball” events that combine the sport of basketball, celebrity appearances, and evidence-based interactive teaching of L.O.V.E. Is The Answer life skills to educate and empower students, faculty, staff, parents, sponsors and others to become more empathetic leaders and allies in creating a more beloved community. We are using the sport of basketball and the allure of celebrities to attract students and others into a sacred space to teach them how to love themselves and others. Our events will put the neighbor back into the hood!

The M.A.A.P. mission is to provide continuing mentoring, academic, tutoring, and athletic programs to young people. M.A.A.P. leverages the power of sports and pro athletes to teach skills that are transferrable to life. 

M.A.A.P. is led by Reverend Ray Sydnor, a retired NFL player, community organizer, and ordained minister who specializes in both youth ministry and sports ministry. He is a loving husband and father who lives by example, influences others to play an active role in encouraging, empowering, and impacting the lives of those in their community. M.A.A.P. previously produced many successful celebrity basketball games and youth clinics under the banner of “Shooting 4 Peace.”

Ray has been involved in sports for more than 30 years, which includes playing for both the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers. Ray’s extensive background in athletic excellence can be attributed to his success in football and basketball at Northwestern High School in Baltimore. It was his athletic talents there that earned him scholarships to the University of Wisconsin where he continued to excel in basketball and football. This is what subsequently led to his NFL post with the Philadelphia Eagles.

“We know that sports is a great unifier/bridge that can cross racial, socio and economic lines. We know sports crosses societal lines in a way that people embrace the principles it offers. So, we use school assemblies, after school programs, sports clinics, camps, and celebrity basketball games to attract people to hear the message of hope and to see their heroes share principles and techniques you need to be successful in the game called life. Our real focus is to mentor through academics and athletics and to partner with like minded people.” — Ray Sydnor

About M.A.A.P.

Ray Sydnor and the Kids

L.O.V.E. Is The Answer’s founder A.J. Ali, also has a professional sports background. A soccer player for the U.S. Air Force team (and voted the MVP in the military’s Mediterranean Sports Conference), he played in exhibition and competitive matches in the U.S., Italy, Germany, and Spain during his time in the service. After his time in the military, he was offered a contract with a 3rd Division team in Sicily but decided to retire from playing due to sports and military related injuries and go into the business end of sports instead. He carried his success on the field into the office, representing athletes, crafting sports sponsorship deals, producing events, consulting to pro soccer teams, owning two pro teams, and completing a film featuring professional and national team soccer players. A.J. has the scars to prove his love of basketball, having suffered two torn achilles tendons on the basketball court. These days, his sport of choice is golf. He holds the distinction of playing rounds of golf in all 50 states in a 101-day period in the summer of 2014 — a journey which inspired him to commit to spending the rest of his life teaching the L.O.V.E. Is The Answer Principles he came up with on his 51st birthday in Hawaii at the end of that incredible trip.   

L.O.V.E. & Basketball Programming Will Consist of:

School Assembly talks by Ray and A.J.
Celebrity basketball games.
Youth basketball clinics that are 3 hours or 6 hours in length. A sample 3-hour clinic is shown below. A 6-hour clinic also includes a screening of the film “WALKING WHILE BLACK: L.O.V.E. Is The Answer” and a discussion about the film with the filmmaker, A.J. Ali, local peace officers, and Ray Sydnor. A kintsugi art exercise, about turning brokenness into beauty, follows that discussion.
And other programs

Sample Event Itinerary - 3 Hour Clinic

  • Students check in prior to event start time and receive their clinic t-shirt.
  • Students pre-register through school/host organization no later than two weeks in advance
  • General Assembly with address from Ray Sydnor and A.J. Ali (15 minutes)
  • Basketball Clinic relating basketball skills to life lessons (45 minutes)
    • Interactive Music and Dancing
    • Trick Shots
    • Skills/Life Skills
    • Contest of the Day
  • Food break (30 minutes)
  • Stations that students rotate to in groups of up to 10: (1 hour/12 minutes per station)
    • Learn: Read Kona’s origin story to the students and then they color their Kona sheets
    • Open your Heart: Share dreams, challenges, etc. with each other.
    • Volunteer to be part of the solution: Share affirmations with each other. For some students, this might be the only time they hear other students say nice things about them!
    • Empower others: Each group thinks up a summertime class project to add something positive to the community.
    • Basketball (first one to LOVE wins)
  • Closing General Assembly (30 minutes)
    • Groups give their presentations on a potential summertime class project and the entire group selects one project to do together to put L.O.V.E. into action.
    • Students each share one thing they learned.
    • Certificates distributed – I participated in L.O.V.E. & Basketball Day at (School Name)
    • Sponsored SWAG distributed

14 Key Takeaways for Students

Self-esteem and Confidence
Emotional Intelligence
Empathy
Communication Skills
Decision Making Skills
Goal Setting
Learn How to Be a Better Teammate in Life
An Understanding of How to Excel at Your Role
Conflict Resolution
Overcoming Adversity and Failure
Resilience
Solid grasp of the L.O.V.E. Is The Answer Principles (LEARN - OPEN - VOLUNTEER - EMPOWER)
SWAG! In addition to the t-shirt, students may receive additional items from sponsors

Celebrity Basketball Games

Our Celebrity Basketball Game are the culmination of a great week of partnering with a community through school assemblies, community rallies and media appearances. The game itself will pit celebrities vs local basketball legends in a regulation basketball game at a local college. The game is a celebration of a job well done, the end of a week of infiltrating strategic locations throughout the community and shedding a message of hope throughout the city. Stakeholders and celebrities will visit key locations, roll up their sleeves and talk about as well as work on evidence-based solutions for some of the challenges facing the community, its schools and its students. 

By doing the school assemblies and community rallies it will allow everyone to hear the same message and get on the same page. We can speak in up to 30 schools per day (approximately 150 schools total) with the help of the local police department as partners and escorts. A proven strategy for us has been to make media appearances in the morning, do school assemblies during the day, and community rallies in the evening. This allows us to touch all facets of the community. Again, everyone gets the same message to create momentum. Also, the morning of the Celebrity Basketball Game we’ll do a co-ed youth sports clinic.

The Celebrity Basketball Game is also a great place to bring the community together and to celebrate change agents and difference makers in the community. We’ll recognize them as well as key sponsors at halftime of the basketball game. We’ll also give a donation to a local charity and a needy family when we shoot the L.O.V.E. Is The Answer TV series episode during halftime at the game. It’s always a great draw and platform to have local sports legends, change agents, and difference makers standing together in a unified front!

Logistics for The Celebrity Basketball Game

The logistics for the Celebrity Basketball Game and school assemblies are as follows:

Doing 30 school assemblies a day will create excitement and transform the community in a way that is immeasurable. The impact of having celebrities and law enforcement coming to a school and sharing the same powerful message will add fuel to the community and bring street cred to law enforcement. That’s the power of sports!

 

Here’s how it flows; most motivational speakers can do a maximum of three 45–50-minute school assemblies per day. So, let’s use that formula and say we’ll need upwards of 10 speakers for the week of the event. Inside of that formula we’ll use some local celebrities as well as some national celebrities. That being said, we’ll need hotel rooms, transportation and food sponsored. Normally, with the help of city leadership local hotels will donate rooms for our celebrity guests. The hotels that donate the rooms also provide breakfast for the celebrity, typically a buffet style and that hotel is considered Command central, meaning the celebrities meet with local law enforcement/ their rides and their speaking assignments for the day. The police and the celebrity athletes spend the day together visiting targeted schools and doing the school assemblies. At the end of the day we wind down and debrief at a local restaurant that would sponsor the meal and as a benefit the celebrity athletes will sign autographs and take pictures with restaurant staff and patrons. We will promote this to generate business for the restaurant to insure this is a win-win proposition.

To discuss bringing a L.O.V.E. & Basketball event to your community, to become a sponsor, or to partner with us, contact Ray Sydnor at ba***********@gm***.com or 443-252-5519, or A.J. Ali at aj***@tr********.com or 443-463-5009.