VACAVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Someday final fall, Ray Woodfork discovered himself being challenged to a struggle by a fellow inmate half his age on the grounds of Solano State Jail.
Woodfork would have been tempted not so way back. The Golden State Warriors have helped flip him towards a unique mind-set.
This time, the once-aspiring faculty basketball participant, who was serving as referee for the jail soccer league that day, instantly made it clear he had little interest in an altercation. Woodfork stated he selected to stroll away and return to his dorm.
He acknowledges had he fought there’s no means he would now be a part of a peer mentoring program or have an opportunity for the governor to evaluation his case.
And Woodfork definitely wouldn’t be a licensed basketball coach both if adrenaline and anger had received out.
“I used to be identical to, ‘That’s not who I’m, that’s not what I’m about,’ and I walked away,” Woodfork recalled. “It’s arduous to do, as a result of the flesh needs to do this.”
The incident occurred earlier than Week 5 of a six-week program run by youth coaches from the Warriors Basketball Academy as a part of the Twinning Undertaking that’s instructing incarcerated males at Solano teaching abilities and displaying them there’s the possibility for significant transformation.
Woodfork efficiently utilized a ability discovered in this system: palms down.
With palms dealing with down, it permits somebody to maneuver ahead and concentrate on the following second or play, forgetting no matter set off may be proper in entrance of them or one thing that already occurred.
Ray Woodfork, a graduate of Twinning Undertaking’s collaboration with the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s cohort 1, center, performs a rap tune in entrance of cohort 2 contributors and Warriors Basketball Academy members at Solano State Jail in Vacaville, Calif., Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Picture/Jeff Chiu)
Woodfork started writing rap lyrics about his expertise with the Twinning Undertaking, which began within the UK by pairing skilled soccer groups like Arsenal and West Ham United of the Premier League with prisons to contribute within the rehabilitation course of. U.S. golf equipment similar to D.C. United, Angel Metropolis FC and Miami FC have grow to be concerned — and different NBA groups are displaying curiosity.
“Golden State will likely be a tough act to observe,” Twinning Undertaking CEO Hilton Freund stated.
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“With my palms down, I relax, subsequent transfer is on them.”
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A number of months later, Woodfork grabbed a mic and commenced rapping these very phrases in celebration as his 15 basketball teammates danced alongside him and hugged each other.
It’s commencement day.
Which means a stroll in entrance of the group to obtain a certificates and Warriors jersey with every man’s final title on again. The hope is these graduates will now use their abilities to show different incarcerated males not solely methods to coach however to be constructive influences.
When Warriors academy coach Ben Clarfield circles up the group at midcourt to present the boys and instructors an opportunity to offer suggestions, there’s a widespread theme.
The Twinning Undertaking has supplied these males a way of self-worth and function, a break from the isolation of jail. Most of the contributors expressed feeling beloved and seen — usually for the primary time in years.
Daniel Lopez performs a basketball drill with different Twinning Undertaking cohort 2 contributors through the challenge’s collaboration with the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation at Solano State Jail in Vacaville, Calif., Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Picture/Jeff Chiu)
This has been about grace and forgiveness, inclusion and acceptance. Oftentimes, these concepts have needed to be discovered or re-learned — and the Twinning Undertaking performed a vital function in that course of.
“It reintroduced me to my love of basketball, that individuals on the surface haven’t given up on us,” former Fresno State scholar Jonquel Brooks stated. “It’s wanting to teach however not figuring out methods to coach, then now being given the instruments to have the chance.”
Jeff Addiego, vice chairman of Warriors Basketball Academy, and his employees have additionally been modified by the outreach. They beamed and fought tears on the identical time, overjoyed to see these males discovering that means of their new roles.
The best way this program works, the Warriors gamers and coaches aren’t collaborating as a few of the European professionals are, although former Golden State large man Festus Ezeli has been a daily customer.
“We’ve gotten to know every one in every of these guys. If one in every of these guys was anyplace else I’d give him a hug the primary time I noticed him,” Addiego stated.
“It’s wonderful. We don’t pry or ask them something it, however what they’ve been prepared to share with us, it’s highly effective stuff.”
Woodfork’s mentor, Viet Kim Le, took half within the second teaching cohort. He has noticed the dedication by Woodfork to indicate regret for his crime and higher himself whereas serving a life sentence with out the potential for parole for homicide.
“His beliefs have modified,” Le stated, “so he seems to be at life via a unique lens.”
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“I don’t react, I reply, I take a breath and I transfer on.”
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Spanning 4 hours every Tuesday, a few of these males felt like precise basketball gamers once more. They stepped right into a altering space within the Solano health club and traded their jail blues for jerseys that includes the Warriors brand on entrance and Twinning Undertaking on again earlier than making their technique to the courtroom for drills like capturing, dribbling and protection. There was additionally psychological coaching to seek out methods for each state of affairs they could encounter in jail or, for some maybe finally, life on the surface.
Twinning Undertaking cohort 2 contributors collect earlier than performing basketball drills through the challenge’s collaboration with the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation at Solano State Jail in Vacaville, Calif., Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Picture/Jeff Chiu)
They backpedaled with additional self-confidence, they high-fived, dispensing good-natured trash discuss right here and there, however greater than something they cheered one another on — via each nice shot or errant cross.
Many would possibly by no means have combined in any other case.
Neighborhood-building is a giant a part of it.
Freund launched his charitable basis in 2018, and he and his spouse attended the Feb. 11 commencement of the second group of 16 males at Solano receiving teaching certificates. He’s thrilled the Warriors turned concerned.
Freund references a examine from the College of Oxford printed final yr displaying this system’s “wholistic profit” for the incarcerated resulting in “higher conduct, much less propensity for violence, improved relationships amongst themselves and improved relationships with their jail officers.”
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“Making coaches out of convicts, we’re taking on cities … teaching with a ardour, that’s how we set the tone.”
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The palms-down strategy is about having the facility to decide on a response. That message and different studying instruments got here from psychological abilities coach Graham Betchart, who works recurrently with the UConn males’s basketball staff.
On his first drive to Solano, Betchart got here up with the rhyme “let it go, give it again, subsequent play I assault.”
He had no concept Woodfork would quickly start turning these phrases into rap.
“Inspiring to the world,” Betchart stated, “and it is available in a means that I’ve by no means seen anyone ship it the best way that he does. … And every part he’s saying is PG-13 nevertheless it’s delivered in a means that’s so highly effective you don’t even understand that you just’d need your 9-year-old child listening to this.”
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“I let it go and get it again, the following play, you already know I’m going to assault.”
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Woodfork was arrested at age 20 for killing a person throughout an tried theft. He had anticipated to start out enjoying faculty video games in a summer time match mere days later.
“So I used to be proper there, proper there,” Woodfork shared.
Now he’s hopeful his arduous work will likely be thought of by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
A former gang member each inside and outside jail who as soon as had desires of enjoying within the NBA, Woodfork has skilled to be a peer mentor — a program requiring he have 5 “clear” years with out bother to be able to take part.
The Warriors’ program has crammed a significant void.
“That’s an understatement,” Woodfork stated, “as a result of truth my aspirations have been to play within the NBA someday, as a child that was my finish all, be all, that was my id. Basketball was every part.”
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“It’s deeper than the sport and that title in your shirt, it’s the Twinning Undertaking, the place actual males put in work.”
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It brings Addiego and the others to tears at instances witnessing the progress — like Woodfork deciding to not struggle that day.
“I talked myself off the ledge by talking out loud about what occurred,” stated Woodfork, now working as a drug and alcohol counselor.
“This is a chance to indicate the world I’m not the individual I used to be. It doesn’t outline me. I really feel like I’ve outgrown jail, I really feel like a fish swimming upstream, a salmon.”
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