Hoops rivals to bond with special-needs peers

The Del Norte and Rancho Bernardo boys basketball teams collided on the court in front of a large crowd on Jan. 10. The two neighboring programs fought hard for 32 minutes before the Broncos came away with a 67-62 victory.

In the past, the two rivals would go their separate ways into league play and not see each other again until the next season. But this year the programs are joining forces to do something bigger than play a game on the hardwood.

They are hosting a “Best Buddy Annual Field Meet” together for the special-needs students in the Best Buddy programs at Rancho Bernardo and Del Norte. The Best Buddy program works to enhance the lives of special-needs students by pairing them with student mentors.

“We are going to have lunch and then all kinds of fun,” said Nighthawks coach Bob Spahn, who came up with the idea with his good friend and first-year Broncos coach Marc Basehore. “We are going to do relay races and all kinds of Olympic competitions to create high morale and camaraderie. We want our varsity athletes to understand that these students in the Best Buddy program are special kids, and we want them to see the bigger picture in life.”

The event is taking place Saturday at Pioneer Park in 4S Ranch between 12 and 3:30 p.m. Spahn is expecting around 175 people to attend, including both schools’ athletic directors and possibly both principals.

Basehore was an assistant coach with Spahn at Del Norte for five years before being hired as the Broncos head coach. The moment Basehore was hired the two wanted to have the programs do something together that goes beyond basketball.

“We wanted to find a way to link our two programs and the Best Buddy program was the obvious choice,” said Basehore. “I think it will be a great learning experience for the basketball players and we are hoping a lot of them go and join the Best Buddy Club on campus.”

The idea to link the two basketball teams through the Best Buddy program might never have hit Basehore or Spahn if it wasn’t for Evan Karr. The 2014 graduate of Del Norte has autism and spent four years as the team manager of the Nighthawks’ basketball team.

“Evan is just an extremely bright young man that just loves life and his life is great,” Spahn said. “But he does have autism. And one of the things he taught all of us is when we think about our lives there are times guys feel sorry for themselves and here you have Evan who just loves life and he doesn’t look at anything in a negative way. He was our manager and he helped out, but more than anything he was always so happy to be with the boys and the boys were happy to be with him.”

Said Basehore: “We still hang out with Evan and get dinner with him once in a while. It was a great experience for us and for our boys to have him around. We learned a lot from Evan.”

Some of the things they learned included patience, understanding and compassion. Basehore and Spahn are hoping their players can learn those things and others during Saturday’s event.

“We want to beat the heck out of (Rancho Bernardo) and they want to beat the heck out of us when we play on the basketball court,” Spahn said. “But we think we have a chance to do something bigger off the court. We want to show that two schools can have a rivalry and still be able to come together and be part of the bigger picture.”