Michigan State Men's Basketball Hosts Camouflage Kids
12/15/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 15, 2007
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Approximately 200 members of military families with the Michigan National Guard were in attendance at the Michigan State-IPFW men's basketball game on Saturday. The family members were guests of Camouflage Kids, a non-profit organization that donates tickets to college athletic events to the children of soldiers called away to active duty. In addition to receiving a game ticket and t-shirt, family members heard a pre-game talk from Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo, a member of the Camouflage Kids Board of Directors, toured the basketball offices and locker room and were on the court waving American flags during the National Anthem.
Camouflage Kids started in 2005 when Jeff Nix, former Notre Dame assistant coach and former New York Knicks scouting director, purchased season basketball tickets to the U.S. Air Force Academy and donated them to the kids at Fort Carson. In the summer of 2006, Nix held a backyard BBQ featuring a coaching roster of Izzo, Air Force's Jeff Bzdelik, Indiana's Kelvin Sampson, Wake Forest's Skip Prosser, Marquette's Tom Crean, Notre Dame's Mike Brey and former Notre Dame coach Digger Phelps. The event raised enough money to send more than 1,000 kids to Air Force athletic events. By 2007, the mission grew to include the children of Fort Carson, Fort Bragg and Fort Benning as well as the Indiana National Guard and Indiana Marine Corps.
For more information on Camouflage Kids, visit www.camokids.org. As the web site states, the mission of the organization is "By giving these kids a unique field-trip experience, hearing from coaches and athletes while touring the campus on gameday, we hope to lift up their spirits at a time when they need it most."