When a 6-foot-11 basketball player with size 15 shoes walks intoa room of children, he can draw quite a bit of attention.
That's what Anthony Kent, a junior member of the men'sbasketball team, did Monday when he spoke at the Muncie PublicLibrary's Kennedy Branch to children involved with a summer readingprogram.
Kent told the children about how he became a collegiate athleteand what he does to stay competitive at that level. He alsoanswered questions, mostly about how tall he was and what size shoehe had on.
"This is fun, I like to do stuff like this," Kent said. "I seemyself doing a lot of stuff like this in the future."
Director of GameDay Experience Chris Taylor organized thefour-day event that has athletes, coaches and administrationvisiting different Muncie Public Library branches.
"One of the major goals of our department is to increaseawareness and attendance and be very involved in the community,"Taylor said. "I'm from the community, and have been here and thinkit has a lot to offer."
The program is for children up to fifth grade and the guestsfrom Ball State all try to help the kids understand how importantreading is.
There were five kids on Monday, but almost 50 children showed upon Tuesday at the Maring-Hunt branch for a presentation by soccerhead coach Ron Rainey.
Taylor spoke to 25 kids on Wednesday about his job and onThursday men's golf head coach Mike Fleck will visit the Carnegiebranch; about 25 to 30 children are expected.
"It just kind of gets you back and allows you to refocus alittle bit when you're with 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-year-old kids and theydon't have any idea what your job is," Taylor said.
This is not the first time members of Ball State athletics havebeen in the community. During the 2003-2004 school year the men'sbasketball team along with 850 other student-athletes, coaches andstaff members performed over 1,800 hours of community service.
This program, while it didn't get off to a great start withnumbers, seems to be going well.
"I think it's been pretty good even though sometimes the numbershave not been good," Taylor said. "It's a fun break from what we doall the time, but yet it's a very important break."
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