Today's post is written by Assistant Coach Marcus Moeller:
If you stroll through the Leggett and Platt Athletic Center after October 15th you will undoubtedly hear the word "Help!" echoing through the rafters. The nature of playing defense is that you sometimes require the aid of one of your teammates. Coach Mitts has talked a lot about the fundamentals of our defense during preseason. We are actually trying to reduce the number of times that we say "help!", because the fewer times we need help on the floor, the better our defense will be.
We have also stressed another type of help during this preseason as we have been able to lend a helping hand by doing community service! Community service is a huge part of what we do in our program. We put a huge emphasis on helping others because of how fortunate we are and how much people have given to us. The community of Joplin is EXTREMELY supportive of our basketball program and it is simply the right thing to do to give back to the community.
Our first service project of the year was moving everything inside of the Outreach House into its new building. The Outreach House is a ministry of St.
Peters Catholic Church that strives to supply food and clothing to underprivileged families. The Outreach House's new building is located one block away and is far more secure in stature than its previous dwelling. We teamed up with the football team (almost 100 of them!) and got to work sorting clothes, moving racks, carrying heavy appliances, and many other things. Everything had to be moved and it was so fun to see over 100 Missouri Southern student athletes involved in the process. As you can imagine after working that hard for 4 or 5 hours, our team was ready to eat! That's when the members of the church stepped in and were nice enough to prepare a feast for lunch. Our players were so grateful for the meal.After working all morning, senior guard Jasmine Lovejoy had this to say "It's a great experience. We get to learn about the Outreach House and how they help all of the underprivileged families." We are grateful that our team is willing to give up their weekend to help people in need. When asked about the day Coach
Mitts shared these thoughts, "There is something to be said that this is their weekend: when I'm sure they could be going home and spending their downtime, they chose to be here."The following weekend we spent all morning and early afternoon helping out another program on campus. The Men's and Women's cross country teams hosted the annual Southern Stampede on our cross country course. The event consisted of more than 2000 runners split into 6 divisions: College Men, college Women, high school girls varsity , high school boys varsity, high school girls junior varsity, and high school boys junior varsity.
On a hot and steamy Saturday morning, our whole team was perched at the finish line helping the official time keepers by cutting off the microchip timing devices that were tied to every runner's shoe. Due to the steamy temperatures and the high humidity, the Missouri Southern training staff was overloaded with work and we were also able to help them by carrying runners over to their training area. Whether cutting the microchips off the runner's shoes, sorting the microchips, carrying people to the medical area or giving congratulatory high-fives, it was a great day to be outside helping the event run smooth.
Don't be afraid to ask for help and don't be afraid to give it. This idea is something that we talk about in our program a lot. If you are struggling in a class, don't be too prideful to ask someone else for help. If you get beat off the dribble drive to the basket, you better be calling for help. By the same token, we really try to instill in our players a desire to help others. The past 2 weekends of lending a helping hand to others have been a great experience for our players and our coaching staff.
Until next time...It's a GREAT day to be a LION!!
Assistant Coach
Marcus Moeller
