Dublin High School students raise over $10,000 for challenged athletes

Four Dublin seniors have dedicated their spare time to teaching basketball to younger students and raising money for challenged athletes.

DUBLIN – Sport often brings young people together, and some Dublin high school students is showing just how much good it can do for the wider community through their nonprofit basketball program, DubShot.

Meghana Dwaram, Aadya Tomar, Anjana Kidambi and Rhea John met through their basketball team in middle school. Now seniors at Dublin High School, the 17-year-olds’ love of the game has become infectious. They’ve all played since they were children, and say that the game has taught them discipline, teamwork and connection.

In 2020, they decided that they wanted to share that with younger athletes. Lockdown provided them with the spare time to make a plan, and soon DubShot, a basketball skills camp for grades two to seven, was born. “We wanted to help others learn what we had learned through the sport,” Dwaram said in a group interview.

“Toward the end of quarantine, we started going door to door and putting fliers up. We really weren’t expecting more than five or six kids but on the first day of camp 30 kids showed up. We just started coaching them and went from there.”

The camp was only planned for the summer at first, but a number of parents asked the coaches if they would run practices more frequently. The program now takes place every weekend at Fallon Sports Park and has served over 60 young players.

Group classes cost $15 and all of the proceeds go to the Challenged Athletes Foundation, a California organization that helps people with physical challenges lead active lives.

“We’re all so passionate about basketball and we wanted to spread that passion, which is exactly what the Challenged Athletes Foundation does. So, we decided to donate all of our money to them,” Tomar said.

In early December, DubShot presented the foundation with a check for $10,000, and the young coaches will be recognized by the Dublin Unified School District for their hard work during its Jan. 10 board meeting.

“It was always more than just a sport for all of us. We’ve learned so much along the way from our coaches – much more than just dribbling and shooting. I’ve learned about responsibility, hard work and how to connect with other people. It was only right for us to teach that to other kids that might not have the same means that we do,” Kidambi said.

They have all loved running the program — so much so that they want to keep it going after they head to college next year by recruiting more volunteer coaches.

“I love to see the way the kids light up when they accomplish something they put their mind to. They’re always so happy, and they love coming to practice,” John said. “The connections we form with our players make DubShot more than a basketball academy; it’s a family.”

Tomar said she feels the same way. “I had the opportunity to coach this one kid named Darwin who started when he was in first grade. He came in with his little miniature basketball and I wasn’t used to coaching little kids, so I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to coach him, but I learned so much,” she says. “Now he’s in third grade and he’s using a full-size basketball and is able to do so many moves that kids who are older than him can’t even do.”

Darwin has even won an MVP title at the Jr. Warrior Basketball Summer Camp since starting with DubShot, his father Brian Lai said. “He says the moves he’s learned from DubShot are unstoppable,” Lai said.

“Darwin loves going to the class because Coach Aadya always finds ways to keep him challenged while developing him to be the player he wants to be. To him, Coach Aadya is both his coach and a good friend.”

The team will continue to build the program for the rest of the school year, and they have plans to make online videos for players who live farther further away. They also want to raise even more funds for the Challenged Athletes Foundation, which will go toward providing grants and hosting camps for athletes with physical disabilities in the Bay Area.

“$10,000 is huge for us. That money will go so much farther than these students can probably even imagine,” said Eva Kristof, the foundation’s regional programs and community relations manager for Northern California.

“It means that we’re able to provide even more grants to individuals with physical disabilities so that they can participate in sports and fitness, and it gives us the opportunity to host more camps in clinics in the area.

“It really means a lot to us that these students have chosen us to provide this funding to. They really are inspirational, and they have a maturity level so far beyond their years.”