Samford’s Men Basketball team tips off in one month, and Coach Lennie Acuff’s new squad is already garnering support from the Birmingham community. Using homes and locations in Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brooke and Homewood, coaches and players traveled all “over the mountain” to meet local families and future fans of the Bulldogs.
On Sept. 2, the team announced a contest on X for fans to submit their home to be the host of their block party. A few weeks later it was announced that three locations had been selected.
“We have two houses and an elementary school that we’re going to stop by,” said Director of Strategic Communications Samford Athletics Brad Sietz.
Each location was carefully selected with one thing in mind.
“We wanted to hit the (three) communities around Samford,” said David Knight of Bandwagon Sports, a company who partnered with athletics for the event.
The first stop of the touring block party was a home in Vestavia Hills. The event was full of kids and parents donning the free block party t-shirts. The team introduced themselves with a Q&A with the kids from the neighborhood as well as participants from Acuff’s summer camp. There was then a dunk contest, half-court shot challenge and a game of Bump (Knockout) with all the kids.
Transfer DaJion Humphrey does not take for granted what being with the kids means.
“We are trying to make these kids days because at the end of the day we were kids once and being able to do this is something that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives and hopefully we inspire them,” he said.
The second stop of the trip was outside of Crestline Elementary in Mountain Brook for an opportunity to let kids run around and throw a football with players, as well as get many autographs as they can.
The final stop was a Homewood neighborhood again packed with families, fans and games.
Acuff was instrumental in the planning of this event and believes the relationship between a team and its fan base goes both ways.
“We want to be givers. We just don’t want to just take. I think now a lot of times in college athletics, there’s a perception that everybody should be doing for us. We need to be doing for others and being here and being visible is really important,” said Acuff.
Many of the families attending the event were not from Samford, but rather basketball fans or locals in the community looking forward to a good neighborhood block party but now are looking forward to taking their kids to a basketball game this season.
Samford basketball will continue working to gain support from fans and students with Dogs after Dark on Oct. 30 in the Pete Hanna Center.
Sports Editor
