Saturday, March 15, 2008

Jake's Diner Knicks





We decided to sponsor our grandson, Jayden's basketball team this winter and it turned out to be a real treat. I have coached and watched various teams over the years and this one was special. They all seemed to get along real well, played together real well, and developed into quite a good team.

They set screens, passed the ball around, and were physical on defense. Since the games were on Saturday, Judy and I had to trade off on watching the morning games but I got to see quite a few of them and took note that the further along in the year, the better they played.

The last game meant the most to me, however. I was watching the game when a tap came on my knee. I looked down to see Chase (KC from the twins son). He said "Thank you for being our sponsor.". I became speechless and overwhelmed as one after another the whole team came up and did the same. I don't know what parent came up with the idea but I actually began to get chocked up as the line of little athletes just kept on coming. It was an incredibly good feeling.

The season now over, we had the team into the back room this evening where we served them a buffet of Chicken Dinosaurs, Mini Corn Dogs, Cheese Sandwiches, and French Fries. At the beginning of the evening, KC gave me a thank you card from her and Chase which was a cute scrap book type card of pictures of the games with a picture of Jay and I also.

After eating, the coach brought Judy and I over and presented us with an autographed picture of the team and a thank you card. The team clapped and thanked us out loud and once again, it just felt real good. We topped off the evening with cake and the boys all signed each others shirts. Some of them had me sign their shirts also.

I would highly recommend sponsoring to any business out there. It was the best $200 in marketing that I have spent in quite some time.

3 comments:

SJacobus said...

Were Mike and Karla basketball coaches for this team? This is really cool. I found your blog on the bendblog.com site. I see half our soccer team played basketball together too. They're becoming quite the little family:)

Anonymous said...

Hi Lyle,
Thank you for sponsoring The Knicks basketball team! Your commitment to our community is a blessing for so many.
You rock...I'm a big fan of yours.
Love,
KC
KC and Ron Mornings
Classic Rock 98.3 The Twins

diner life said...

Thanks KC. I appriciate what you and Ron do also.

And thankss for the comment, Jacobuses. It is so cool to see these boys grow up together.