
Please tell me you know who you are looking at in this picture? Lowly me and former Georgia basketball star Lavon Mercer. an imposing figure for SEC opponents in the late 70’s and for the European league competition he played against while playing for Maccabi tel Aviv in Israel back in 1987. Now, he’s the head basketball coach at Spellman college in Atlanta and doing so much more in bringing kids together from around the world through his tutelage in the game of basketball.
Mercer, is working on a project called The Friendship games, which enables student athletes from around the world the opportunity to spend time together while competing in a round robin basketball tourna,ment in at Tel Aviv University in israel. Hawks co-owner Ed Peskowitz started the Friendship games three years ago and this year will have 20 countries represented including Jordan, Israel, Russia, Kazakhstan, Italy, Canada, Estonia, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and Serbia and Germany to name a few.
I had to snap this pic as I truly feel as if Lavon Mercer is a star becasue I had the chance to see him play back in 1987 when i was in Israel studying abroad with my colege roomates. I remember, every Sunday night we would go to one place and watch Maccabi Tel Aviv play in their league games, Mercer and Doron Jamchee as well as another big man Kevin Magee played significant roles on that team. Now Mercer has his eye on another team, the world team of unity through the Friendship games.
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