Ashe uses talents to help community
Published 7:07 pm Friday, July 29, 2016
PINETOWN — Northside standout and college-bound basketball player Jabari Ashe has surely left his mark on the court in the last few years. Now he’s trying his hand at something new in an effort to give back to the community.
His overall objective has been to take his talents and training and pass it down to the younger basketball players of Beaufort County. It first started when he began training with Keith McLawhorn in Greenville. Ashe said that style of training was very different from the training he experienced in Beaufort County. McLawhorn has trained the likes of Reggie Bullock and the Atlanta Hawks’ Kent Bazemore.
“I wanted to spread his style of training here in Beaufort County because it works and it’s very intense,” Ashe said. “I want to see this area become known for basketball. As of now, I work with people who ask me and most of the guys around my age just workout with me to experience it.”
Other experiences Ashe has had include working out with 13-year-old Orlando, Florida, varsity player Julian Newman. Ashe has incorporated what he learned in that workout into his own.
In another venture, Ashe put on a basketball camp at Northside as part of a senior project. He said he got a lot of good feedback from it and is looking to host something for high school players next summer. He talked with Kyle Ellis and Jamie Shaw of Phenom Hoop Report — a recruiting website that covers North Carolina players — and got them to commit to attending the camp.
“They both helped me with my recruiting,” he said. “I’m just trying to really do anything I can to help out the community.”
Most recently, Ashe got to work with the Team Infinite groups that captured two national championships in Charlotte. He worked with the 8th-grade team. While it didn’t make the trip to Charlotte, it was its first season, and Ashe hopes it was the beginning of something bigger.
“It was a very interesting experience because it was my first time coaching,” he said. “It worked out, and it actually helped me out with my experience because I got to see what a coach would see and how a player thinks. I got to see both sides and I believe that helped me become better as a player.”
Besides developing basketball players, the AAU group is focused on keeping the area’s youth on the right path. Ashe said he enjoyed working with the kids and getting to travel with them, but especially took pride in the life guidance he was a part of.