By Joshua Koch
Dressed in white button-down dress shirts, black pants and purple ties, the Humble High School boys basketball team walked through the doors of Lakeland Elementary on a Tuesday morning.
It is gameday for the boys basketball team. But before they take center court later that night in a District 23-6A game, they have important work to do – mentor 5th graders at Lakeland, an elementary campus in the Humble High School feeder pattern.
“They look forward to coming over, they look forward to working with the kids,” Humble coach Chris Reid said. “They talk about the kids on the way over. They’ve truly built relationships with these kids. It’s been as much of a blessing to us as we hope to be to these children. It’s helped some of our players come out of their shell as well.”
In December, Reid was looking for opportunities for his players to give back.
The opportunity arose to take a short bus trip over to Lakeland Elementary each week and work with fifth graders during their lunch. The basketball players served as their mentors.
“We jumped at the chance when he suggested it to us,” Lakeland Elementary Behavior Coach Bethany Durham said. “We thought it was an awesome idea. Because mentorship and the opportunity to connect it makes a difference in kids' lives. What I know most about education is that it is about connections. The relationships that we build with these kids, the relationships that they build with one another and the relationships they build with the community. That’s what this program is doing for us.”
On this Tuesday, the players are paired up with their mentees and sit with their lunches in the library. They worked on worksheets about how to be respectful. Each week is a different topic.
“It’s helping with my leadership,” Humble senior Ashton Williams said. “Because being a leader you have to have different skills. Being able to talk to kids like this and make them comfortable enough to talk to you has helped me out as a leader of the team.”
Humble junior Kobe Lacy added: “It’s really developing leadership and just helping these kids. Teaching them the right and wrong things. The things to do and not to do.” 
Each week during the program, Durham saw the fifth graders involved light up with excitement knowing the basketball players were coming over from Humble High School that day.
“The fact that they are building confidence in the ability to communicate with not just their classmates but with these older guys,” she said. “For them, being around these guys is a big deal.”
Outside of the work done each week between mentor and mentee, the basketball players and fifth graders connect on topics like playing similar video games or like similar professional athletes.
Lacy has two younger siblings at home, so he views the program like being a big brother just like he is at home every day. For Williams, it brings him joy seeing how excited the Lakeland Elementary students get from just being around them for an hour.
“We know these kids look up to us,” Williams said. “Coming back and talking to them makes me happy to see them happy talking to us.”
Reid will look to continue the program next school year and expand it to include fourth and fifth grade students. In the end, teaching his players not just about the Xs and Os and wins and losses on the basketball court but having them leave with invaluable life lessons is truly what this program is about.
“The greatest thing that we can do as coaches and educators is to give them something that they can take with them beyond the court and something they can use the rest of their lives,” Reid said. “That’s what I remember about my coaches.”