The tall and the short of it
Vadim Fedotov, a UB basketball player, is almost seven-feet tall, but that's not what earned him an appreciative "oooh" when he introduced himself to 120 kids on the courts in McCarthy Park on Amherst Street. He got their props for his origins. "I am from Russia."
On the court, teaching basic basketball footwork, Fedotov, sounding a little like Arnold Schwazenegger, had the kids screaming with delight when they could catch their breath.
The event, which tipped off with an address by UB women's coach Linda Hill-MacDonald and ended with one from men's coach Reggie Witherspoon, gave the kids, all in blue event tee-shirts, action lessons from players on UB's men's and women's teams in six basic offensive and defensive skills and a lesson in what basketball practice feels like--every 11 minutes, on the dot, the whistle blew and everyone rotated to the next station.
Organized by the UB Office of Community Relations and the UB Division of Athletics, the clinic was a chance for kids to get close to real life college athletes. They all loved it, kids and players.
