In early February, three neighborhood kids rang the doorbell at Todd Dybas’s Fort Washington home in search of a basketball pump. They had come to the right place. Dybas, the Nationals beat reporter for NBC Sports Washington and a basketball junkie who plays year-round, popped the trunk of his car to reveal three balls, shoes and a pump, prompting one of the kids to ask if he was a coach.
The kids’ deflated basketball was so worn it resembled a cue ball, so Dybas gave them one of his, and after they promised to return it, he told them it was theirs to keep. The neighborly act of kindness, coupled with similar past experiences, sparked an idea that has ensured Dybas will be handing out a lot more basketballs in the coming months.
“I wondered why this kept happening, and I thought there should be some sort of resource for this,” Dybas, who gave away several basketballs at parks over the past year, said in a phone interview. “I thought of my parents’ house, where the basketballs my brother and I used probably sat for 20 years, and I thought everybody has to have the same scenario. Then you have all these kids who don’t have anything, or what they have is terrible.”
As his parting shot on a recent episode of NBCSW’s “Nationals Talk” podcast, Dybas encouraged any listeners willing to part with their old basketballs to contact him. When he returned from spring training in West Palm Beach, Fla., he would find a time to pick them up and get them into the hands of kids in his community.
To Dybas’s surprise, in addition to the roughly 10 people who responded initially to say they had used basketballs for the taking, others asked him for his address to mail him balls directly. The first package he received was from a Prince George’s County transplant and Nationals fan now living in Arizona; dozens more packages from people across the country would follow.
Also in this podcast: a plea from me at the end. I keep giving away basketballs here to kids I meet in parks or in the neighborhood I live in in PG County. They either don’t have a ball or have terrible ones. They are thrilled every time bc you can hoop alone if you have a ball.
— Todd Dybas (@Todd_Dybas) February 11, 2020
“I had no idea what the response would be,” Dybas said. “The whole premise was for me to find people with used balls in their house, and for me to go get them, and then eventually hand them out. And then this happened, and Amazon was at my door every day. … I’m super appreciative of all the people that have sent stuff."
Dybas, who created an Amazon wish list to make it easier for people to donate, arrived home from Florida to find a mountain of basketballs waiting for him. The count, as of Monday morning: 60 balls, more than a dozen pumps and two Amazon gift cards.
For those of you who recall my ask for used basketballs so I could distribute to kids in my neighborhood in PG County, here’s a look at the entrance to my house thanks to folks from as far as Arizona who shipped new balls and asked nothing in return. I don’t know what to say. pic.twitter.com/zUtIbi5ggb
— Todd Dybas (@Todd_Dybas) February 16, 2020
With Opening Day approaching, Dybas is still figuring out the logistics for distributing the basketballs and pumps he has already received. He has considered creating fliers to place in the church that’s adjacent to the Fort Foote Recreation Center outdoor court he frequents.
“I presume I’ll end up at that court on a first-come, first-served basis,” Dybas said. “There’s no infallible way to do it.”
In the meantime, Dybas is still accepting donations. He can be reached at todd.dybas@nbcuni.com or on Twitter at @Todd_Dybas.
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