There is a lot we think we know about University of Houston basketball coach Kelvin Sampson.
We know the story of his upbringing in the Lumbee Native American community in North Carolina. We know about his evolution into one of the greatest college basketball coaches. We’ve watched him do a remarkable job of transforming the Cougars back into a national power program.
But what probably goes unnoticed is the behind-the-scenes work Kelvin, his wife Karen, daughter Lauren and his basketball team do in the background to make our community better. Sampson and his family have long embraced the value of giving back and reaching out to people in their time of need.
That’s why it hasn’t been uncommon to see his players, such as Jacob McFarland, Joseph Tugler, Cedric Lath, LJ Cryer, Emanuel Sharp, Terrance Arceneaux, and others, spending time at places like the Texas Children’s Hospital, putting smiles on the faces of kids who are in the fights of their young lives.
“It’s important,” Sampson reflected recently. “The success you have in basketball or if you have a successful program, that’s great. But the experience our kids get to see when those kids’ eyes light up … When we walk into the room and they have an IV in their arm or leg or their foot, and their parents have been there for 75 days waiting on their little girl or little boy to get better, I think it’s a valuable lesson that we’re playing a sport and it’s fun but life is going on all around us.
“I will say this, our kids come from such great families that they are all awesome in that environment.”
Interestingly, Sampson also comes from a great family that instilled in him the importance of helping others and volunteering. Sampson recalled how his mother, who was an RN, after retirement worked at a hospice facility. Sampson was just starting his career as a young assistant coach and his mom would often ask to save all of the free lotions, shampoo and toothpaste from the various hotels he would stay in and then bring them all to her each spring to give out to the patients and their families.
“So I got that from my mother because she was like that. Her mother was like that,” Sampson said. “They would go around and collect clothes. Back then they didn’t have donation stations. My grandmother would go around door-to-door asking if they had clothes that their children had grown out of because there are some families with kids who couldn’t afford it. So I had good teachers.”
