MEMPHIS, Tenn — "Our motto is God, family, community. Nowhere in there is basketball. If I am building these men up to have a better relationship with God, then they can build better relationships with their families and help to build their community," said assistant coach Otis Anderson.
Growing up in the heart of South Memphis, Dr. Anthony Canada Boyce says choosing the wrong path would have been easy for him, but he always saw more for himself.
"Where I came from it was not a lot of positivity coming up, so what we would do...we would galvanize and have stories about what we wanted to become," said Dr. Canada.
Dr. Canada went on to finish law school and become a professor in his community at Lemoyne-Owen College when he saw a need to help young athletes.
"About 20 years ago, I decided I wanted to officiate basketball on a small scale," said Dr. Canada.
He noticed that although talented, not all qualified athletes were making it to the college level.
"I started to some of these aspects that young men were going through the parents, the coaches, the schools and I just decided that it was time to help some of these young people who were at Walmart, Kmart, Walgreens," said Dr. Canada.
That's when he co-founded a prep program for boys basketball called Tennessee Prep, winning two national championships in 2016 and 2018.
However, with his players coming from all across the country he noticed the team had more players than supporters.
To change that, he founded Memphis Day Academy.
"When we play now the gyms are full and it's the community school. That's what the 80-20 rule is when we start a school 80 percent of its participants are going to come from that community," said Dr. Canada.
Like Tipton-Rosemark Academy graduate Cameron Donegan.
"Coming out of high school I didn't have many looks, no college offers so coming to Memphis Day and being able to work to get better, playing games, and playing in front of coaches, it helps a lot," said Donegan.
In addition to giving young athletes a second shot at a college scholarship, the program has given players like international student Kasop Lawrence an experience he's never had before.
"Just a father figure to me, calls me aside when I'm having a good game or bad game and tells me what I'm doing wrong, what I should work on, and I never really had that when I was growing up because my dad died when I was little so I never had a father figure," said Lawrence.
"It's like a support system that you can always fall back on, it's like whatever happens, your brother got you no matter what so it makes life easier at some point," Lawrence explained.
All while coaching each player to be a leader when the ball stops bouncing.
"Coming up, I had so many people pour into me and the knowledge in your head you got to give it to somebody. You must give it away, the wisdom, you must give it away," Dr. Canada explained.