Jamais is less than four feet tall, but he can dunk on a regulation-height basketball hoop! At least, he can when he gets lifted into the air by Brandon Burrows, an inside linebacker for the University of Georgia Bulldogs, who, conveniently for Jamais, stands six-foot-three.
Burrows was one of seven UGA football players who turned down any Friday-night fun on their college campus to join in on an Angel Tree Christmas party held at Mars Hill Baptist Church (MHBC) in Watkinsville, Georgia, near UGA’s Athens campus, at the end of 2011. Thirty-one children of prisoners attended with their caregivers, and they were delighted to spend an evening with the players, who amount to “local celebrities,” according to Dr. Katherine T. McClain and Sherry Rudowske, Angel Tree church coordinators at MHBC.
The players – including Burrows, quarterback Hutson Mason, split end Michael Bennett, and red-shirt freshman quarterback Parker Welch, among others – horsed around with the children in the MHBC gym. They also distributed Angel Tree gifts on behalf of their incarcerated parents, presented them with Bibles, and posed for photographs. The photos were later sent to the incarcerated parents as a memento of the joy they had given to their children by signing them up for the program.
McClain, who is also a graduate of the Centurions program and a professor of economics at UGA’s Terry College of Business, praised the players’ participation: “I was so impressed with these gentlemen for their willingness to come out and spend time with the children … Watching these seven hulking guys with the little children was heartwarming. They all have asked to return next year!”
Players from UGA and Georgia Tech also participated in an Angel Tree football camp for prisoners’ children during the summer of 2011.