Dec. 3, 2013
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky women’s basketball senior guard Kastine Evans (Salem, Conn.) was nominated for the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Allstate Good Works Team, it was announced Tuesday.
The award recognizes a select group of college basketball student-athletes who have made significant contributions to the greater good of their communities through volunteerism and civic service. In its second year, the Allstate WBCA and NABC Good Works Teams® honor players at all levels of college basketball who represent the sport’s finest in the areas of leadership and charitable achievements amongst their peers. The student-athletes nominated for this prestigious award embody the true spirit of teamwork and giving back.
From the 84 WBCA nominees and 118 NABC nominees submitted by coaches and sports information directors across the nation on behalf of their schools, special voting panels will select two 10-member teams comprised of five student-athletes from the NCAA® Division I level and five student-athletes from NCAA® Divisions II, III and the NAIA. The final roster of 20 award recipients will be unveiled in February.
The 2014 nominees uphold impressive service resumes detailing unique and inspiring stories of servitude. From volunteering with sick and underprivileged children to lobbying state legislature for new laws that could help save lives, this exceptional group of young men and women demonstrate the positive impact student-athletes can have on and off the court.
Throughout her Wildcat career, Evans has been an active member in the community and a leader on the hardwood. In 2012, Evans created her own non-profit organization called “Shooting at Success” which provides children with an outlet that to create opportunities for strong character development, help establish dynamic and powerful personalities, and inspire children to achieve academically, in any extracurricular activity, and in life. She came up with the idea after traveling to Ethiopia in July of 2012 for a week-long service trip. While in Africa, she helped distribute food and charcoal to victims of leprosy, painted a community center, visited orphans and taught them how to shoot a basketball. What stood out most to Evans from the trip was coming to understand the everyday struggle of the people she served. Even in the face of poverty, the natives always found joy in their lives through faith and a sense of community.
“I came up with the idea of ‘Shooting at Success’ by realizing that basketball or sports in any way are a great tool to get through to young kids in my community,” Evans said. “It’s very fun, but at the same time you can teach them discipline, you can teach them hard work, you can teach them different things that they will learn in the classroom but also on the basketball court. It’s a great way to reach out to kids on a common level and just at the same time be able to be important figures in their lives because they are looking forward to something that’s coming up in the week and just being able to relay any message that you try to get through in a sport like basketball.”
Along with SAS, Evans is a frequent volunteer at Lexington’s Ronald McDonald House, where she cleans the house and does other chores as needed. She has volunteered to pack and deliver food for God’s Pantry BackPack program, volunteered to pack bags for the Joplin, Mo., tornado victims, participated in the NAACP Voter Registration Drive, getting all eligible voters on the UK Hoops team to register to vote for the 2012 election and volunteered with her sorority for Breast Cancer Week, helping bring awareness with programs and fundraisers for Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
On the court, Evans currently ranks second on the team in scoring (12.1 ppg) and 3-point field goal percentage (.500), while tying for the team lead in steals with 14. Evans has recorded double-figure scoring outputs in six of the first eight games, while only reaching double-digits four times all last season.
More information about the Allstate WBCA Good Works Team® and the Allstate NABC Good Works Team® is available at www.wbca.org and www.nabc.org. Follow UK Hoops on Twitter and Instagram at @UKHoopCats and on Facebook by liking University of Kentucky Women’s Basketball.
