Reading Rainbows

The Rainbow Warriors got in the community spirit on Friday morning when they paid a visit to students at Waikiki Elementary School.

The entire coaching staff and about half the players were present (some are still off island, while a couple others apparently couldn’t make it). They split up to various classrooms and read to the younger students.

Afterward, they fielded some questions from the 5-to-10-year-old kids. As you might expect, there were some pretty creative topics. Head coach Eran Ganot was asked about the particulars of “mouse-ketball.” Aaron Valdes was asked to jump and touch a ceiling beam (easy), then the actual ceiling (still pretty easy). Isaac Fleming was told that he looks like a young student’s dad’s friend.

“It’s something we look forward to doing more of,” said Ganot. “Activities like this, No. 1, is for the kids, and anything we can do to give back to them and to the community we’re all for. And it’s great for our program, great for our guys, to continue to remind them they’re in positions of influence and abilities to affect lives in a positive way.”

The players present (Zach Buscher, Brocke Stepteau, Fleming, Valdes, Niko Filipovich, Stefan Jovanovic and Mike Thomas) seemed to enjoy the experience.

“I like being around kids,” Fleming said. “It was me looking at it as something that I like to do. So when I was reading to them it was more fun, (I was) more into it so I could engage the kids. I could see how much we mean to them, so it meant a lot.”

Performance analyst/director of operations Jamie Smith helped put the event together.

And yes, it’s something former coach Gib Arnold arranged at the same school a year prior, along with a handful of other schools. It was one of the last things he did before he was ousted.

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The Hawaii College Summer League title game is 7 p.m. today at the Maryknoll Gym, featuring undefeated top seed Electricians Hawaii and Wealth Strategy Partners, which is going for its second title in three years.

If you want to see it but can’t make it there, it’ll be televised live on Olelo (Oceanic ch. 49) and streamed live online.

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Here’s a gallery of shots of members of the team who participated in the reading exercise.