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Rockets Reach Out to Community

By Trevor Smith • on September 19, 2008

North Americans everywhere watched last week as Hurricane Ike ripped through the city of Houston and much of coastal Texas; the category three tempest leveled nearly everything in its wake and left destruction in the city that will take billions of dollars to repair.

Enter the Houston Rockets, an organization that reminds us all of the role a team can play in bringing a community back.

The Rockets this week purchased four tractor-trailers full of food, water, toiletries and other necessities for victims of the storm. What’s more, the team’s players themselves were on-hand Thursday to unload and distribute them.

In all, the team donated over 80,000 pounds of supplies to the storm-ravaged communities in and around central Houston. Rockets owner Les Alexander organized the shipments of goods himself as early as Monday as an immediate outreach of support to the community that the Rockets have called home in 1971.

“It was an easy decision to do something very quickly,” team chief executive officer Tad Brown said. “We had the infrastructure in place to do it.”

Even if it was an easy decision, it is not one that we are accustomed to seeing and it speaks volumes about Alexander’s character as an owner and her commitment to the community that fills the Toyota Center night after night.

Sadly, and perhaps predictably, we as fans are cynical towards the ownership of our local teams. We are generally hesitant to accept the notion that a franchise cares about their community beyond a possible public relations boost.

There have been too many times when professional sports give us all reasons to cringe; incidents of indignity that leave fans everywhere shaking their heads and wondering why we possibly invest so much time and energy towards following, funding and supporting this particular form of entertainment.

We as fans are too often bogged down with the negatives associated with following sports. Player DUIs, domestic incidents, or stories of uncivil player treatment of fans fill the sports pages on a seemingly weekly basis.

One need look no further than the front page of today’s sports section to see proof of this: the controversy and commentary surrounding Josh Howard’s senseless comments about “The Star Spangled Banner” dominate the headlines, decrying him as the prototypical insensitive and ignorant professional athlete.

While incidents like Howard’s remind us how out of touch some athletes are, the press must be sure to juxtapose them with the stories of figures that do care, that are committed to their neighbourhoods, that “get it”. Which is to say, figures like Leslie Alexander and the Houston Rockets.

The unique place a pro team holds in the community offers it the chance to stand for more than wins and losses. Rightly or wrongly, a local team serves as a symbol of the city, an image or representation everywhere of the values and standards of its supporters.

While it might be silly to thrust upon a team the duty of upholding the ethics or moral code of an entire city’s fan-base, we do it nonetheless. A team can be the living image of its city. So in those times when a franchise rises above its position as a mere entertainment outlet and serves its community we must stand and applaud.

Alexander has given jaded fans a reason to think twice before dismissing endless NBA Cares commercials as purely public relations pieces where players leave as soon as the camera turns off.

Another reason to believe that teams care about their communities: since October of 2005, the league, players and teams have raised more than $88 million for charity, donated more than 660,000 hours of hands-on volunteer service, and built more than 310 learning and playing spaces.

Through NBA Cares, the NBA is the most dedicated of any professional league in the world to the social and local responsibility of its teams, using its visibility to make positive change.

In an era where we as fans focus on how a player or team has failed to meet our expectations rather than acknowledge those that do help, it can be difficult to remember what good corporate citizens NBA teams are.

Sure, the league and its players are not always perfect models of behaviour (see Tim Donaghy, for example). But there are still players like the Rockets Mike Harris, Chuck Hayes, Rafer Alston, Aaron Brooks and Luther Head that took time out to carry boxes of food and supplies to victims of Hurricane Ike.

Head told reporters how he felt fortunate not to have much damage to his own house, but that he “felt bad for the people who lost more.”

This is not the only occasion where the Rockets have set an outstanding example for other teams about caring for its fans: the team has helped center Dikembe Mutombo with his charity to improve education in his home in the Democratic Republic of Congo and worked with Feed the Children three years ago after Hurricane Katrina.

“The one thing about a hurricane or a disaster like this, it doesn’t matter how much you make, it doesn’t matter what profession you have, it doesn’t matter if you’re a pro athlete or an account executive, we’re all going through the same things,” Tad Brown said.

Thus, I commend the Rockets organization for setting a shining example of how a basketball team can elevate itself to so much for the city and people it represents. Not only can they inspire with their play on the court, but they can help others with their commitment to conscience off it.

Photo Credit: Icon Sports Media

This article was written by:

Trevor Smith - who has written 38 posts on Hoops Addict.

Trevor Smith is a management consultant living in Toronto, Ontario. He currently writes for HoopsAddict.com, and previously worked for NBA Cares. He is a graduate of Queen's University.

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