"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give," Winston Churchill famously said. For Dwayne Evans, the opportunity to give back, to pay it forward, involves sharing pointers about the game he loves.
Evans has been a professional basketball player since 2014. He's entering his third season with the B.League's Hiroshima Dragonflies, the reigning champions.
A few weeks before the daily grind of the regular season began, the 32-year-old American forward held a basketball clinic for local junior high school students in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture.
The event, dubbed the Quick Clinic '24, was free, thanks to Evans' generosity and time.
In an upbeat 25-minute phone conversation with Odds and Evens, the Illinois native spoke about his passion for playing basketball and the enjoyment of interaction with Japanese students on September 1.
And he wants to build off the fun and energy of the first clinic in Kure.
"The aim is to do it a few times during the year," Evans told me. "Obviously, the [B.League] schedule kind of gets hectic."
Setting up a Basketball Clinic
How did the Quick Clinic materialize?
"It was something I created on my own just because I knew obviously that I didn't have a ton of time," Evans pointed out. "But yeah I wanted to get kids in, pass on what I know and have fun in the process."
The Dragonflies were not involved in organizing or staging the recent clinic. But Evans let the team know his plans to get involved in the community in this way, and he said the team was happy he committed to staging the clinic.
One of Evans' friends, AJ Koikoi, who works in international relations for the United Nations in Hiroshima, helped out, spreading the word about the clinic to local junior-high school coaches and traveling teams' coaches.
"There were some skilled kids in the camp, and I had a good time," Evans said.
What's in a Name?
Like me, you may be wondering why Dwayne Evans decided to launch the first of his Hiroshima Prefecture events with the name Quick Clinic.
Here's his explanation: "Because a lot of the things I was teaching in the camp [are] how to be faster, how to make quick moves on the court."
Initial talks about the idea for a clinic began between Evans and Koikoi during the B.League playoffs in May.
An estimated 30-35 students, both boys and girls, participated in the clinic on September 1. Six staff members were also involved in the day's basketball camp.
More than 2½ hours of basketball activities took place, followed by Evans handing out autographed mementos to the students. The students and staff also posed for photographs after the clinic.
A focus of the clinic was just "trying to teach them some of the things that help me out on the court, some of my [best] moves that kind of help give me an advantage on the court."
Such as?
"There's a lot of change of pace, change of direction," Evans explained.
Helping Students Improve as Basketball Players
Which is why during the busy basketball clinic, students participated in ball handling drills with an emphasis on change of direction and change of speed, according to Evans, a former Saint Louis University player (2010-14) whose pro career previously included stops in Germany and Italy.
These skills are designed "to throw defenders off and, yeah, get yourself scoring opportunities," said Evans, who averaged 15.0 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.6 assists in 60 games for the Dragonflies in 2023-24. He joined Hiroshima in 2022 after playing for two seasons for the rival Ryukyu Golden Kings.
At the local school gym in Kure, Evans served as a basketball clinic organizer for the first time. As a college student-athlete, he was involved as a participant in a number of summer basketball camps, helping teach younger kids to play the game.
"Over the last couple years, I realized that I wanted to kind of get back out there, even while being here in Japan," Evans said. "And I was happy that this came along."
Asked to reveal a memorable question from one of the junior-high school students that he was asked at the clinic, Evans shared the following story: "One of the kids actually asked me, 'How do you maintain your motivation?' And that was just such a curious question to me, just because I'd never thought about it."
How did he respond?
"I kind of just said I'm a motivated person naturally," the 201-cm forward shared.
He then said, "I think having interests outside of basketball also helps keep me motivated because when I'm actually in the gym I'm locked in here."
Combining Two Pastimes
Dwayne Evans likes art. And he mentioned that one of the reasons why he wanted to organize a basketball clinic is because he was interested in designing T-shirts for the event.
He used his iPad to make a sketch that appears on the front of the T-shirt.
Conversations with B.League players Koh Flippin (Gunma Crane Thunders), Isaac Fotu (Utsunomiya Brex) and Sebastian Saiz (Alvark Tokyo) proved helpful to Evans as he planned to design T-shirts and sell merchandise in the future.
In the future, he envisions running a non-profit organization for art and basketball clinics, including pop-up shops in Hiroshima Prefecture.
A 'Totally Different' Experience
After the Dragonflies defeated the Golden Kings in the B.League Finals in May, there was a profound change in the way the team was recognized through the city of Hiroshima and in the prefecture.
Just ask Evans.
"It's totally different," he declared.
"Walking around the city, you get recognized wherever you go," he added, "you hear people kind of whispering under their breath, 'Oh, Dwayne Evans, oh the Dragonflies.' So it's pretty cool to have that attention in the city because I know the [NPB's Hiroshima] Carp and [the J.League's] Sanfrecce [Hiroshima] usually are the most noticeable teams in the city."
Evans Looks Back at 2023-24 B.League Season
Looking back on the Dragonflies capturing the B.League title, Evans described it as a "very cool experience."
But heading into the playoffs, the team's mindset was "we can win this," he recalled. "It's been an up-and-down season, but it's very wide open."
Hiroshima had a 36-24 record in the regular season. The Brex had a league-best 51-9 record.
How did Evans feel he played in 2023-24?
"I think honestly for me on an individual basis it was kind of just overcoming tough times, times where I didn't play well," he said. "In the past, I'd get frustrated with that or kind of let my emotions go up and down."
Summing up his play in 2023-24, he added, "I stayed the course and fought through moments on and off the court to ultimately end in the championship, which was awesome. And as a team, we did those same things in a very up-and-down season."
Same Approach with A New Boss in Hiroshima
After leading the team to its first B.League title, head coach Kyle Milling left the team and was hired as the new bench boss of the Gunma Crane Thunders. Recently retired player Shogo Asayama was named the Dragonflies' new head coach.
That said, Evans was asked for his thoughts on the team's outlook entering the 2024-25 campaign. Hiroshima travels to play Gunma in its season opener on October 3.
The approach remains that the Dragonflies are "not the best of the best," Evans said of team management.
"Even though we won last year, we were never the team that was expected to win," Evans added. "We lost a couple of key pieces on the wings this year, so we've gotten a lot younger. Our work's going to be cut out for us for sure."
As the new season approaches, Evans noted that the team's primary goal is "to be competitive," adding that "I think it's going to take us a while … a jelling process."
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Author: Ed Odeven
Find Ed on JAPAN Forward's dedicated website, SportsLook. Follow his [Japan Sports Notebook] on Sundays, [Odds and Evens] during the week, and X (formerly Twitter) ＠ed_odeven.
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