Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
ANTHONY GAGLIANOThe Florida Starzz basketball club is expanding, the vision of a man who sees the game as more about life than a round ball.
When Stanley Robinson moved to Florida from New York, he was disappointed with the number of sporting opportunities for girls.
"Up North, everything the guys had, the girls had," Robinson said. "There was nothing here in the South for girls."
So five years ago, Robinson began the Florida Starzz basketball club for girls 17 and younger. He wanted to give girls a chance to get noticed by college scouts.
At the time, his daughter Kiana was a top player for the Brandon Eagles. She's now at the University of Connecticut, but her father still directs the Starzz. This year, the club added an under-15 age group and next season plan to double the number of teams to four with an under-13 team and an under-11 group. Each team has about 15 players from schools across the county.
"We want to start honing their skills early and developing their fundamentals," said co-director Winferd Chasten. "So when they do get to be 15, 16, 17, they'll have been with us five years and it will be easy to get them into the programs they want to go to. The expansion will be challenging, but I think it will be possible to do it without heartaches."
The season begins after high school basketball, in February or March. The teams, which are part of the Amateur Athletic Union, play at summer tournaments and individual camps across the country.
Thirty-six former Starzz players have gone on to play college basketball, Robinson said, and he expects the 10 seniors on this year's team to sign with a school in November during the NCAA's early signing period.
That's a lot, he said, considering the club began practicing on an outdoor court. Today, the team works out at the Harbour Island Athletic Club and the Jackson Heights Community Center to prepare for events in New Orleans, Atlanta and New York.
This year, Adidas sponsored the team by providing shoes, bags and uniforms. Fundraising, however, remains a key part of the program.
"We sell candy, wash cars," said Robinson, a nurse at the Zephyrhills Correctional Institution who lives in Valrico. "We do anything possible."
When fundraisers haven't pulled in enough money, Robinson has dipped into his own pockets.
He knows the sport. An assistant girls basketball coach at Brandon High, he played for the University of Buffalo and professionally for a league in Germany. He prefers the women's game over the men's.
"The guys' game is caught up with the dunk and three-point shooting," Robinson said. "The women are exciting because they're fundamentally sound and don't do all those tricks. And girls listen a lot better."
To play with the Starzz, the girls must adhere to a dress code on the road, take part in community service and, most important, maintain a minimum 3.0 grade point average.
"Basketball is a tool," he said. "The game is about life, not a round ball, because that ball will stop bouncing one day."