Track & Field team shows leadership through service

South Carolina men’s track & field set an impressive record this year, and it had nothing to do with competition. The Gamecocks led the South Carolina Athletics department with a team-record 1,505.5 hours of community service during the last academic year, and a part of that community involvement centered around several members of the team mentoring a couple of youngsters who live near the Sheila and Morris Cregger Track facility.

Darrell Singleton, Jr.

“It started my freshman year when there were two or three kids that would always come down to the track while we were practicing,” said rising senior Ben Womble, who is studying business economics. “They’d hang out with us while their parents were at work. They lived about a block from the track, and after my freshman year we found a house (to rent) that was just down the street from them. We let them know we were living on the same street. From there, they would follow us home from practice and come places with us.”

“We noticed them coming out every day. We got to the know them, and it went from that to meeting their parents to make sure it was OK that they were hanging out with us,” said Darrell Singleton, Jr., who earned his degree in criminal justice in May and is enlisting in the U.S. Army.  “They would be out there doing back flips on the grass. I think they thought it was free-for-all time because there was a time when all the freshmen came in, and they didn’t have all their South Carolina gear yet, so it just looked like we were out there running. Then we told them it was a practice, and when we’re not practicing, they could be out here, and they had to respect the space.”

“They would come to practice after school and hang out,” said Eric Favors, who graduated in May with a degree in criminal justice and will attend graduate school in the fall. “We made sure homework had been done first and tried to show them positive things to do in order to make it to college. We would always preach getting good grades in order to be go to college.”

This year marked the first time that the men’s track team led the South Carolina Athletics Department in service hours. The student-athletes weren’t necessarily seeking to break a record, but instead, they were simply trying to make an impact in the community and working with kids who were their neighbors was meaningful.

“I didn’t think of it as community service,” said rising senior Kaden Briggs, who is majoring in physical education. “We just spent time with them and let them know that they have a place to go to and role models to look up to. We all just got kind of tight with them. They’re kind of like our little brothers. They live down the street from the track, so we’d see them all the time. We’d go watch them play football. I didn’t think of it as community service. I think of it as being a good human.”

“We basically called it an ‘adopt a child’ sort of thing,” Singleton said. “We didn’t even know that it could be counted for community service hours. We would incorporate them in our drills, and we would take them to dinner sometimes. They were just a part of the team. I think it kept them motivated to do well in school. We also knew that we were helping them become better behaved. Along with letting them practice with us, there were certain standards we set for them to do that. They had to have good grades, they had to stay out of trouble, and we had to stay in contact with the parents to make sure they were listening at home. Slowly but surely, the parents were impressed that by allowing them to hang out with us, their behavior at home and at school changed a lot. It was something we wanted to do for them without them telling us we had to do it.”

“We’d play games with them or play X Box with them,” Womble said. “They were our little neighborhood kids, and we’d spend a lot of time with them. After a while, I realized we were having a pretty big impact on them. For me, it made me feel more like a person who lives in a Columbia and is a citizen. Before then, I felt like I was just a college student. It brings me closer to the city.”

This type of organic community service represents what the Athletics Department wants to see from its student-athletes.

“It has been incredibly inspiring to observe Darrell, Eric, Ben and Kaden lead the charge for Men’s Track in community outreach efforts,” said Megan Stoltzfus, Director of Student-Athlete Development. “Their service work is not something they did for recognition. They truly want to make a difference in the lives of youth in our community. Whether it was Trick or Treating with kids and checking to ensure homework was completed each day, or mentoring middle school students and showing local children around at a track meet, these young men gave what little time they had to the betterment of children who needed strong role models. I am so proud of the positive influence these guys have had in the community, among their teammates, and other Gamecock athletes.”

“You get to grow and give a piece of yourself to someone else and see how they grow as well.”
– Kaden  Briggs

The Gamecocks have been involved in many different types of community service during their time on campus, but this experience has benefited them as well as it offered a chance to see a little bit of themselves in the children they spent time with.

“At one point in time, we were all like that in wanting to hang out with the older kids,” Singleton said. “We wanted to fit in.

Eric  Favors

“We just saw it as a chance to come out and enjoy themselves. We wanted to promote being outside and being active instead of staying inside playing on their phones. They would do back flips on the pole vault mat. They would throw a football around. So as long as they weren’t getting in trouble, we allowed them to do whatever, as long as the grades were good, and they weren’t saying bad words. Their parents knew that every day from two o’clock until we left the track, they were in good hands with us.”

“They’re real cool people,” Favors said. “We just sort of put them under our wing and tried to show them what it would take to go to college. They’re really young, so to have someone in a collegiate sport act a role models, I think it was cool to show them what it takes. I think we made an impact, especially with grades and making sure homework is done.”

“I think I’ve made a positive impact,” said Briggs, who wants to be a teacher, a coach and eventually an athletics director in the future. “To be honest, I think it made more of an impact on me than anyone I worked with. You get to grow and give a piece of yourself to someone else and see how they grow as well. That was the coolest part. It’s important to give back, especially when so much has been given to me. My parents always told me that if you get into a position where you could give back, you should. I wouldn’t be where I am without someone else having done things for me. I don’t have the biggest platform, but just being a student-athlete makes me someone that others can look up to.”