Using a broad mix of basketball stunts, humor and common sense, speaker Jim “Basketball” Jones kept the crowd “in the game” February 9 as he visited Seaton Elementary with his motivational message.
His focus for the 1st through 5th grade students was on character, putting forth your best effort, teamwork and listening. With a bit of good-natured ribbing mixed in, his message is for kids to live their dream, which he says often means putting yourself out to help others do their best. Randomly selected students got a chance to test their skills alongside Jones and were rewarded with small gifts for their efforts.
Jones’s upbeat message comes from his own life. He overcame dyslexia as a youngster, honed his skills with basketball tricks and performed as a teen at halftime shows with the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA.Refusing to let his learning disability define him, he put forth the extra work needed to finally exceed everyone’s expectations and graduate with honors from Bowling Green State University.
Students were captivated as Jones engaged the crowd in his positive message as he ran through his bag of tricks with the basketballs: juggling, dribbling and inspiring balancing acts with the spinning spheres.
His feats included putting his autograph on a basketball with a spinning ball on top of his pen.
The Toledo native has been putting on his show for more than a dozen years, and during that time has visited 3,000 schools in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.
For a look at addional photos from the day’s events, please visit:
https://picasaweb.google.com/LapeerCS/JimBasketballJonesVisitsSeaton#
