VaTech Player Uses Bowl Issued Best Buy Gift Card on Less Fortunate Kids

bamabelle1991

All-American
Jan 1, 2009
4,040
179
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South Alabama
This is how I know, "Before they parted ways, Exum took a picture of the four of them and posted it on Twitter". All I'm saying is that sometimes you do things to make yourself feel good and the whole world does not need to know about it. But like some of you have said maybe others will see this and do the same thing. RTR
You have a very skewed view of the world if you think this kid did this to "make himself feel good." If he wanted to make himself feel good, he would have used the $470 for himself and posted pics of his LOOT on Twitter. As we all know, kids post EVERYTHING on Twitter.

It is amazing how you see this in a negative light. It is also amazing how you think the world doesn't need to know about it. Good deeds should spread like wildfire. I guess you would have rather seen him posting pics from a strip club, signing secretly with an agent or snatching the last iPad mini away from a child? :rolleyes:
 

TrampLineman

Hall of Fame
Jul 21, 2010
7,287
6
57
Alabama
I'm glad this got out, it could possibly give other players the idea to do it in the future. Imagine a whole team giving this up one year to a certain charity.
 

RTR91

Super Moderator
Nov 23, 2007
39,407
6
0
Prattville
I'm glad this got out, it could possibly give other players the idea to do it in the future. Imagine a whole team giving this up one year to a certain charity.
Would it be some violation if the Bama players did this for Nick's Kids or the Austin Shepard Foundation? That would be a really cool thing for them to do.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk, so my post may not be what I typed thanks to auto correct. Also, I may need an emoticon but cannot use one in this post.
 

TrampLineman

Hall of Fame
Jul 21, 2010
7,287
6
57
Alabama
Would it be some violation if the Bama players did this for Nick's Kids or the Austin Shepard Foundation? That would be a really cool thing for them to do.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk, so my post may not be what I typed thanks to auto correct. Also, I may need an emoticon but cannot use one in this post.
That's a good question. I would think not, but I would think CNS would possibly steer them elsewhere to avoid a conflict of interest. With todays media they would probably raise all kinds of crap over it sadly.
 

Chukker Veteran

Hall of Fame
Feb 6, 2001
10,594
5,067
287
It would be a nice tradition for players about to sign pro contracts to do this with their bowl perks, afterall they are about to get very nice paychecks.

And if it was up to me, the players who weren't going pro would be encouraged to enjoy their perks any way they please, on themselves or others.
 

uafan4life

Hall of Fame
Mar 30, 2001
15,608
7,414
287
43
Florence, AL
I want to preface this post by saying that I'm not trying to brag, only to relate a somewhat similar personal story that perhaps might spark others to something similar themselves, much like I hope this young man's story will. (Ahem, Toddrn)



First, major kudos for the what the young man did. At an age where selfishness - due to an understandable, general immaturity - is usually very prevalent this young man decided, on his own, to act selflessly. That, as much as anything, is a sign of maturity and a good heart.



As for the personal story... Several years ago my wife and I decided that exchanging gifts at Christmas was, for us at least, a pretty stupid tradition - or at least a pointless one. If we really need something - or often just really want something - then we buy it whenever we need it. Exchanging gifts at Christmas always seemed to be a bit of a chore, trying to find different things that we would like while there was nothing that we really needed. This one year, we were at the mall shopping for gifts - for each other as well as for some others - and passed by the Salvation Army's Angel Tree setup. My wife mentioned that, since we were starting to do a little better financially (digging out of the hole we had gotten in early in our marriage), she thought that we should get an Angel from the tree to buy some presents for that year. For some reason, we just hadn't really thought of it before - most likely because up until that year we had been scraping by at Christmas trying to stretch every penny to buy gifts for friends and family that we felt like we "had to buy" plus whatever we felt we could spend on each other. I agreed, without really thinking about it. As we were looking at the tree, trying to pick out an Angel, I thought aloud that it would nice to be able to pick out more than one. My wife - the accountant-y one - agreed that it would be nice to do that but that all of our "Christmas money" was already budgeted. I thought about it for a second and suggested that she just not get me anything for Christmas, since I didn't really need anything anyway, and spend that money on an Angel or two. I figured, at first, that she wouldn't like the idea since she loves giving me presents that I like - even though she hates the process of trying to find them. :) Instead, she immediately and enthusiastically agreed and suggested the same for herself. That year, a new tradition was born.

Every year, now, instead of buying any presents for each other at Christmas we will buy presents for the Salvation Army Angels as well as - when it's being done - a similar program that targets local, elderly people in need. We'll usually get one infant or toddler - because they're fun to shop for :) - and a couple of older children, since we think that there's a better chance that the older children might be left out. Then we'll either get one or two of the "elderly" Angels or additional Salvation Army Angels.

It would be nice if we were able to get the chance to see the people that we buy for actually open the presents - for a little extra bit of self-gratification - but the process of shopping for those less fortunate each year has turned out to be exponentially more rewarding than all of the giving and receiving of gifts with each other was for the first few years of our marriage.



While I understand that the exchanging of Christmas gifts is a very time-honored tradition that many hold very dear, I have two personal theories about it: 1) I believe that few Christmas gifts exchanged between many spouses/significant-others are actually things of need but rather things of want and 2) I believe that the primary reason for the exchange of Christmas presents between most spouses/significant-others is really, basically just tradition. Given that, as well as the general attitude in this thread toward the actions of the young man, I decided to post this as a suggestion for others on the board. It's something that is very simple, very rewarding, and generally not that much of a financial sacrifice.

Next year, rather than spending the money you were planning to spend anyway on each other an/or on yourself for things you don't really need, why not spend that money on those less fortunate? Rather than going to the mall and shopping for yourselves, go to the mall and pick up an Angel or two or five and shop for them. You'll get far more out of it than exchanging gifts with yourselves and those less fortunate will receive some things they otherwise wouldn't have been able to receive.
 

uafan4life

Hall of Fame
Mar 30, 2001
15,608
7,414
287
43
Florence, AL
Another note, and possible suggestion, on my above suggestion...


There are ways to be able to do this, or do more of this, without "actually" taking a lot of money "out of your pocket" at Christmas.

We will typically "spend" more on those we're helping than we would have on ourselves but there's a bit of a caveat there. We will typically save various rewards, gift certificates, gift cards, etc. that we receive throughout the year - if they can be saved and used for this purpose - and use them to buy things for this purpose. Our primary credit card has a decent (but not great) points-based rewards program. One of the coolest things about it, though, is that you can pay with those points very easily during the checkout process on Amazon. So, we'll use the points we accumulate throughout the year to buy the gifts we can get on Amazon that are good deals. We'll do the same with Best Buy gifts cards that we receive from others as presents from last Christmas throughout the year. Another thing we did this year was take advantage of a store "rewards" promotion at Kohl's. We needed to - and were going to anyway - purchase a couple of things for the home, including a "good" vacuum cleaner, and the best deal we found on all of the items was a Black Friday (ordering online, not fighting the crowds) deal at Kohl's. They had a "rewards" or enticement program going on at the time where you got something like $15 of Kohl's cash for every $60 you spent or something like that. Of course, the Kohl's cash couldn't be used during the Black Friday sale and was only good for a couple of weeks after that was over. So, we used that to buy some clothes and things that we could get at Kohl's. We ended up with - simply for buying at the best price we could find what we were going to buy anyway - $90 in Kohl's cash to freely spend on the Angels.

By utilizing these methods, we were able to buy Christmas presents - many of which were needs like socks, coats, and diapers - for six Angels. That was the largest number we've had so far. And we were able to do so, by relying on the above methods and a little luck, "buying" around $600 worth of presents (if I remember correctly) while only spending a little over $150 "out of our pocket". Sure, we could have used some or all of those rewards points and credits on ourselves and bought some things that we wanted or saved a little bit of money throughout the year on some things that we needed. But we really didn't notice it. And, instead of not being able to remember what we spent all of that extra "money" on during the year and/or having several things lying around that we don't really need, we were able to help out six people less fortunate than ourselves. And, like I said, we certainly got far more out of doing that than we ever could have by spending that "money" on ourselves.


Seriously, think about how you could do this or something like this yourself. I strongly encourage you to start a similar tradition of your own, if you haven't already, for this next year.
 

Bamalawdawg

3rd Team
Dec 28, 2011
210
0
0
Do these posts make you feel as good about yourself as the player feels about doing this one act of kindness?
If you really want to look at life with that negative attitude, I guess Jesus is the biggest attention whore in the history of mankind. I might need to find a savior with a little more humility. LOL
 

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