WBB: Win-Win

Huskies Break Away From Basketball To Develop Friendships & Life-Changing Bonds // By Rich Myhre

By Washington Huskies

January 15^th, 2019

Every few weeks, a package shows up in the office of University of Washington women’s basketball coach Jody Wynn. It contains letters from a class of fourth-graders in Riverside, Calif., the pen pals of the players on this season’s UW team.

Wynn announces the delivery with a team-wide text message, and players with expectant smiles are soon hurrying to her office.

“We look forward to getting those letters so much,” said senior guard Jenna Moser. “When Jody sends us a text and tells us our pen-pal letters are here -- ‘Come get them, they’re in my office’ -- you can’t wait to see what (the kids) have to say and to see what surprises they have for you.”

How quickly do they come? “It’s a sprint,” sophomore forward Khayla Rooks said with a smile.

A few days later, a parcel of return letters is on its way to Terrace Elementary School in Riverside. When it arrives, the 9- and 10-year-old recipients are likewise giddy with joy. Before long, they are composing the next letters to be sent off to their new Husky friends.

In this age of text messaging, social media and other forms of instantaneous communication, it is remarkable and even refreshing that a quaint ritual from an earlier era -- handwritten pen-pal letters -- has formed what Moser calls “a really cool connection” between some California kids and the UW team.

The idea of pen pals resulted from Wynn’s friendship with Alana Ditta, who teaches the fourth-grade class in Riverside. Ironically, the two women once attended the same high school in Brea, Calif., though they were not well-acquainted at the time. It was only years later when Wynn and husband Derek Wynn visited a middle school in nearby Yorba Linda where their daughter Jada would attend, and where Ditta was teaching at the time, that the two women reconnected and began what has become a lasting friendship.

This school year Ditta took a teaching job at Terrace Elementary, which is a No Excuses University school. The national program emphasizes that every young student has the potential to attend college, and that concept is promoted by having individual classrooms “adopt” a college or university. Knowing that Wynn was about to start her second season at Washington, Ditta made the UW her classroom’s choice.

When Wynn found out, she sent along some Husky posters, t-shirts and other items as a gesture of friendship. Ditta followed up by asking if the players might write some letters of encouragement to the children. From there, the idea of a pen-pal exchange quickly caught on.

As much fun as everyone has sending and receiving letters, the greater benefit is for the kids to understand that someone cares about them, believes in them, and is pulling for them to succeed.

“We’re in an area that is very low socio-economically,” Ditta explained. “Many of the kids are considered poor and live in areas of poverty. We actually feed the kids breakfast and lunch, and those that stay after school get dinner as well because of their (impoverished) home situations.

“Many of them live in apartments. Some live in homes with 10-15 people. Most of the parents don’t have a college education, and the majority don’t even have a high school diploma. And most are Spanish speakers, so when I communicate with them we have to get an interpreter.”

For these kids, Ditta went on, the chance to correspond with basketball stars _ and in their world, college players are pretty much on a par with LeBron James _ is something that transcends the poverty and other challenges of their daily lives.

“When I tell them they’ve got letters from their pen pals, they’re counting down the minutes until they can (open) their letters,” Ditta said. “They hug their letters. One little girl said that her pen pal is her best friend. You can just feel the sense of friendship they have because of the few times they’ve written back and forth.”

All the players sent pictures of themselves, and the kids have those photos “propped up so they can look at them every single day,” she said.

In return, the kids write heartfelt letters in a childish scrawl, and they usually also send a drawing or some other trinket. Often the gift is a pencil.

“I know (the UW players) don’t need those pencils,” Ditta said. “But these kids are sending their favorite pencil, and it might be the only gift they can give. And they give it from the heart because they truly love their player.”

Whenever the Huskies play, Ditta announces the outcome to her class the next day. “If I tell them we won, the kids will cheer,” she said. “They totally feel a part of the team.”

Wynn experienced some of this affection first-hand when she stopped by the school during a recruiting trip to southern California in early November. When the coach was introduced, “the kids all ran and embraced her,” Ditta said.

In mid-December, Wynn and Ditta coordinated an afternoon FaceTime get-together. It was a chance, Wynn said, “for our players to say hi to their pen pals.”

Still to come is a trip to Los Angeles for the Huskies in early February, when they will play games at USC and UCLA. On Feb. 2, a Saturday and the off-day between the two weekend games, the team will visit Riverside for a clinic at the school. For the Sunday game at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion, Ditta is arranging a class outing.

“The kids have already told their parents,” Ditta said. “They can’t wait.”

In the meantime, the ongoing correspondence reaches “various levels of in-depth,” said Moser, who corresponds with two boys and two girls. One boy wrote that he is getting a baby sister. The other boy shared that he loves multiplication and Harry Potter. One of the girls enclosed a handmade bracelet.

“Sometimes they just want to talk about their day,” Moser said. “Sometimes it’s about significant life things. It just depends. But they’re very curious and there are various things we can connect on.”

Ultimately, she added, the goal “is for us to be role models for them. They can see that we’re going to school and that we’re continuing our education. And it’s a chance for us to give them guidance and to be a good influence in their lives. Some of them have that (at home), but I don’t think a lot of them have that.”

Senior forward Hannah Johnson is a pen pal to two girls and a boy, with the latter admitting to her “that he sometimes feels lonely because he has no friends,” she said. “So I wrote back and told him, ‘I’m here as a friend if you ever need anything.’ … A kid that’s maybe struggling with home life or personal stuff, and maybe with being low income, they can sometimes feel that they’re all alone and that they don’t belong. So maybe it helps to have us as big sisters and to know they have somebody who’s going to be there no matter what.”

Rooks says her pen pals -- two girls and one boy -- “have actually taught me more than I’ve taught them. They’ve taught me to never take anything for granted and that I always need to be grateful for the things I have. We all have our own problems, but they have different problems and they’re learning ways to get through theirs. So I’m kind of picking up things from them to help me fight my own battles, which is kind of crazy that these little kids are actually inspiring me and teaching me stuff.

“This whole pen pal thing has led them to be driven and to want to go on to college after high school so they can get an education,” Rooks added. “And that’s one of the main things for me. It’s something I want to preach. I want to inspire them.”

“Our student-athletes are a great inspiration for so many people, and not just little kids,” Wynn said. “So we want them to understand that people constantly are looking up to them, and they have a responsibility to be role models and to do whatever they can to encourage kids to study, to follow their passions and to reach for the stars.”

Community outreach is something Wynn has emphasized since she arrived at Washington in the spring of 2017. It is important, she said, “for our players to understand that there always people in more need than they’re in. It’s also important for our players to continue to have life lessons thrown at them. We don’t want them going through their college experience by just going to the classroom and then to the basketball court. Part of their development is learning how to work with people and to cooperate with people, but it’s also about learning how to make people feel better while also being appreciative and grateful for what’s been given to you.”

In the coming years, and long after their college careers are over, “our players will forget some of the wins and losses,” Wynn said. “But moments like these will hopefully carry on for the rest of their lives.”

Despite the many demands of school and basketball, all the UW players enjoy helping others in whatever ways they can. Whether it’s visiting schools, spending time with disabled or disadvantaged youngsters, or sending pen-pal letters to a class of fourth-graders in California, the chance to offer hope, encouragement and some kind words along the way “rounds off the (overall college) experience,” Moser said.

“We all have so much love for this place, (including) the team and the program and the sport,” she added. “But the community aspect, and the fact that we’re able to build these special relationships and impact people outside of our sport, it makes the full student-athlete experience that much better. It really puts things in perspective and it’s also really humbling. It’s bigger than basketball.”

In the future, how big will all this be for the kids in California? Only time will tell, but Ditta believes the legacy from something as simple as a pen-pal exchange could end up being profound.

“This whole experience has been (amazing) for my kids,” Ditta said. “(The UW players) have totally put the dreams of college into my kids’ hearts. The (players) affirm this in every letter they write about the importance of school and doing their homework. And they’re telling these kids, ‘You can do this.’

“Now all of these kids want to go to the University of Washington,” she said. “They already have that dream. So even when I tell them, ‘You can pick any college,’ they all still want to be Huskies.”