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I N A U G U R A L S T A T E W I D E
B U S T O U R C O N N E C T S F A N S ,
P R O V I D E S P L A Y E R S C H A N C E T O
M A K E A D I F F E R E N C E By Patrick Stumpf
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I N A U G U R A L S T A T E W I D E B U S T O U R C O N N E C T S F A N S ,
P R O V I D E S P L A Y E R S C H A N C E T O M A K E A D I F F E R E N C E
It’s safe to say the past few months have been
plenty busy for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Following the sale of the team to new own-
ers Marc Lasry, Wes Edens and Jamie Dinan, the
verbal emphasis has been squarely focused on
the future. That foundation was laid following the
selection of Jabari Parker with the No. 2 overall
pick in the 2014 draft and the acquisition of Jason
Kidd as the 14th head coach in team history. The
average age of the team’s 15 players is currently
under 24 years of age.
A renewed, palpable excitement surrounding
the team led to the planning and launching of the
Bucks’ first-ever statewide #OwnTheFuture Bus
Tour, an initiative aimed at connecting the team to
fans across the entire state of Wisconsin. Span-
ning six cities in two weekends in September,
the tour included stops in Madison, Janesville,
Kenosha, Eau Claire, Wausau and Appleton.
“[The bus tour] has been part of our
strategy to really shore up support locally—
first and foremost, we’re in Milwaukee, we’re
Milwaukee’s team— but really looking at ways
that we can go beyond that,” said Dustin God-
sey, the Bucks Vice President of Marketing.
“With it being a young team with a lot of
new faces, we saw it as a good opportunity
and a fresh approach to get out and spread
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2014-15 Milwaukee Bucks Tipoff
the news about what was going on with the team,
and share that excitement with people in our state
that we haven’t necessarily had in recent years.”
Along with Bango, Hoop Troop, Rim Rockers and
members of the Milwaukee Bucks Dances, third-
year forward Khris Middleton and rookie Johnny
O’Bryant hit the road, conducting basketball clinics
at Boys & Girls Clubs and YMCA’s in the selected
cities, and managed to do a little site-seeing, too.
Middleton, who embarked on the first leg of the
trip Sept. 19-20, visited the American Family Chil-
dren’s Hospital at the UW Health Center in Madison,
which preceded a stop at the UW-Madison campus
and a stroll down State Street to see the State capitol.
After holding a skills camp in Janesville, the tour
made its next stop at NEWaukee’s “Summer’s
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I N A U G U R A L S T A T E W I D E B U S T O U R C O N N E C T S F A N S ,
P R O V I D E S P L A Y E R S C H A N C E T O M A K E A D I F F E R E N C E
Last BBQ” event and basketball court unveiling at the AR-
Tery, a creative revitalization project on Milwaukee’s Beerline
Trail. The group continued on to Kenosha Saturday morning
where they held a second skills camp open to the public at
the YMCA, capped off by a tour of the Jelly Belly Factory in
Pleasant Prairie with
local children.
Overall, Mid-
dleton said he got
a sense for how
genuinely excited
fans are about the
2014-15 season to
get underway.
“It was great to
see people out,” said
Middleton, who is entering his second season in Milwau-
kee. “You can see that fans are excited about us this year.
It’s great to get out and meet the fans that support us, and
we wanted to go out there and support them as well.”
For the approximately 100 children who participated
in Middleton’s clinic at the Janesville Boys & Girls Club,
lead program coordinator Kaitlyn Teal said the event was
a big success.
“The kids loved it. After [the Bucks] left, that’s all they
talked about,” Teal said.
“What I think impacted them the most was just to be
able to have the skills camp, because I have a lot of kids that
love basketball. Practicing with a professional gives them
the drive to keep going with it. A lot of the kids we have here
are low income-based kids who probably would never have
this experience if [the Bucks] didn’t come to us.”
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2014-15 Milwaukee Bucks Tipoff
Because it’s the first event of its kind, Godsey
said there was a lot of uncertainty with just how
much response the tours would generate. But
after experiencing it all once-through, he said
it’s become clear that the event’s potential is just
beginning to be tapped into.
“The feedback from media, as well as the
people we interacted with, has been great,” he
said. “From day one being on campus in Mad-
ison, seeing the social exposure take off, from
people getting their pictures taken on State
Street, to parents of 10-year-old kids in Eau
Claire who got a chance to meet an NBA player … the reaction was so positive.”
The 36th overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft out of LSU, O’Bryant traveled
farther north on the second leg of the tour Sept. 26-27, which made stops in
Eau Claire on the UW-Eau Claire campus, the local YMCA and a high school
football game, the Wausau Boys & Girls Club, and finally an appearance at Oc-
toberfest in Appleton.
For someone like O’Bryant, who hadn’t played a single game in the
NBA, the trip not only afforded him an opportunity to act as an ambas-
sador for the team and the city of Milwaukee, but it gave the Cleveland,
Miss., native an opportunity to travel through the state of Wisconsin for
the very first time.
“I’m not really a big name here yet, but just the way fans reacted to
me was great,” he said. “When you get that far up north, I heard that’s
Minnesota territory. So when you get up that far and people are still ex-
cited, it’s a pretty cool deal. There are some great small towns in north-
ern Wisconsin, real peaceful. Overall, it’s a great state.”
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2014-15 Milwaukee Bucks Tipoff
I N A U G U R A L S T A T E W I D E B U S T O U R C O N N E C T S F A N S ,
P R O V I D E S P L A Y E R S C H A N C E T O M A K E A D I F F E R E N C E
Moving forward, Godsey said the hope is the tour will
be able to reach out to even more towns across the state
through the utilization of social media.
“We plan to do something like this every year and
make it even larger, adding social components to it,” he
said. “Even if it’s a town of 400 in northwest Wisconsin, if
they’ve got huge Bucks fans, we want to go there. From our
standpoint, the goal is how we make it bigger and more
impactful, how do we reach more people.”
While the expectation is that the event will continue
to grow next year, for all of those were able to experi-
ence the inaugural tour, the experience was both im-
pactful and humbling.
“It’s definitely inspiring,” said Middleton, a native of
Charleston, S.C. “Where I’m from, we didn’t have any pro
sports. So it’s cool to go out, reach out and meet with kids,
see the smile on their faces and make their day brighter.
Growing up, I wish I had the opportunity to do stuff like that
or meet people like that.”
For a local Boys & Girls Club like the one based in
Janesville, Teal said players like Middleton are making a
huge impact, even if they aren’t realizing it.
“Any way these kids can have a positive role model,
it’s wonderful,” she said. “A lot of these kids come from
single-parent households, so for them to be able to [see
Khris] … they can say this guy is a good role model, he has
good values, he has goals for himself. It’s just an awesome
figure for them [to look up to].”
With sights set toward the future on the court for the
Bucks in 2014-15, the addition of the statewide Bus Tour
demonstrates the team is looking ahead in more ways than
one. Most importantly, however, it’s given them an innovative
way to make a difference in communities across Wisconsin.
“Just seeing [the kids’]
faces and seeing how
excited they were about
everything made me feel re-
ally good,” said Teal. “When
I see that they’re having fun
with it makes me feel like,
‘OK, we did something good
today. We actually impacted
these kids.’”
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