Iowa Energy Brings Hoops and Tix to Lincoln RAILS
The Iowa Energy and the Iowa State Education Association teamed up to distribute free tickets for an upcoming NBA-D game to students at several schools.
March is a big month for basketball and the Iowa Energy brought a lot of it to a couple of DMPS high schools on Tuesday.
There may be no such thing as a free lunch but today at Lincoln RAILS Academy and North High lunch did include free Energy tickets for dessert.
Kyle Davy, Chief Revenue Officer for the Energy, and a couple of Energy players were on hand at both schools to distribute thousands of tickets for the game at Wells Fargo Arena on March 17.
This is just the latest example of the local NBA D-League partnership with the Iowa State Education Association in support of students, but hardly the first.
“Our offices are right across the street from the Energy downtown,” said ISEA Public Relations Specialist Jean Hessburg, “so we get together throughout their season for special events that benefit students.”
The Energy home schedule is dotted with promotions aimed at drawing young crowds, including games played in the morning that annually attract fleets of school buses on fieldtrips from all over the district.
In this case, Hessburg reached out to Vanessa Howell, the DMPS Community Partner Liaison. Howell passed the generous ticket offer on to the district’s 11 Community in Schools Coordinators and they placed their orders. Lincoln was one of the deepest pockets of interest and that’s why Davy, Troy Williams and Quinton Chievous showed up at Lincoln RAILS to play some “PIG” with members of the basketball team. One freshman, Jack McGlothen (who logged playing time with the Lincoln varsity this year), teamed up with Chievous in a two-on-two pickup game and won himself an Energy jersey.
Williams played collegiately at Indiana and spent some time on the roster of the NBA Memphis Grizzlies. He also won the NBA D-League dunking crown earlier in the season as part of the NBA’s All-Star festivities. Chievous played college ball at Tennessee.
After the warmup in the gym the Energy delegation headed for the cafeteria and made the rounds passing out vouchers for the game on the 17th while students lunched on pizza, burritos, fresh fruit and chocolate milk.
“We really value our relationship with Des Moines Public Schools,” said Davy.
And from the looks of the reception his players were getting it’s fair to say the feeling is mutual.
From RAILS it was off to North where, you might have heard, this basketball season has already been unlike any other since 1991.
