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Ebony-Jade Annor is a basketball coach with Charity Bounce in Sydney, Australia, a grantee of Beyond Sport’s Futures in Motion program with New Balance Foundation. Through basketball, the organization builds resilience, confidence and employability skills for at-risk youth, with a focus on Indigenous and culturally diverse communities. After first joining as a participant, Ebony moved into coaching as a teenager and now leads sessions for young people in her community.
Behind every program, team and community organization is a person with their own story to tell. In Their Corner is a new series that introduces the people in our network whose lives have been shaped by sport, exploring the relationships, experiences and lessons that have helped make them who they are today. For our first In Their Corner profile, Ebony reflects on her journey from participating to coaching, what being a coach has taught her and why being there for young people matters.
Who has been in your corner as you’ve grown into the coach you are today, and what have they given you along the way?
The person who’s been in my corner for my coaching journey and even just my journey in life would have to be [former Charity Bounce Global Ambassador, Harlem Globetrotter, and NCAA athlete] Tracy Williams. He’s my mentor as a coach and the reason that I coach for Charity Bounce. He’s really given me a lot of knowledge and confidence in myself to be the coach that I am today. To inspire the kids… to want to keep going.
What’s something about coaching that might not look important from the outside, but means a lot to you?
Something really small that I think is overlooked but very important is just the ability to make a kid that you’re coaching smile. The ability to make them just try. Sometimes… they feel like they’re not good enough to do certain things, or they don’t want to try anything.
Eventually they start trying and really putting like effort in, and that means a lot. Same with smiling. Kids might come into training… maybe something happened with their parents, maybe something happened at school, but by the end of the session, they’re smiling and laughing and having a good time. And that’s what you want.
Because, you know, at the end of the day, you want people to be playing… having fun playing basketball. Not just playing for, you know, nothing – we play to have fun.
How do you hope young people feel after a session with you?
I hope they feel inspired to keep training, to want to be better. I hope they feel happy that they got to join the session. And I hope that they learn something, or that they’re getting better, and that they know that it’s a safe place where they can just be themselves.
What has coaching taught you about yourself that you didn’t expect to learn?
I think that basketball and coaching have taught me small things… like, I’m strong! And not [just] physically strong, but mentally strong. That I’m resilient. That if I get knocked down, I’m going to get back up and keep going and go 100 times harder. These are all things that can relate to life, but that I’ve learned through basketball and coaching.
Another one… is leadership. I’ve always been pretty shy, but when I’m a coach, I’m a leader. When I’m on the basketball court, I’m a leader. All these little things that you don’t even relate to basketball because it’s a sport, but you can find all these small moments that teach you a lot about yourself and about others.
Is there something about being a coach that you understand differently now than when you first started?
When I was a participant, I would always want constant encouragement. Like, I did like the move and then the layup and the coach would say good job. I was like, “why are they saying good job to me? You know, why didn’t they say good job to the other kid?”
But now, as a coach, [I know] it’s not that the kids who aren’t doing good are the ones that you don’t say it. It’s just that you’re not going to say it for every single kid [every time]. So that’s something kind of funny that I see differently.
Now, as a coach, I’m not always going to be like, “good job” unless it’s at the end of the session. I always say good job to the kids and tell them what they did good because the positive reinforcement and encouragement [is good]. But during the drills, I might be quiet, just observing and it doesn’t mean that they’re doing badly. It’s just I’m watching for what can I help them with. Or, what’s something that they can do better?
If the young Ebony could see you now, what do you think she’d be most proud of?
I think there’s two things that the child Ebony would really appreciate and think, “hey, you’re doing a really good job at that.” One, that I didn’t give up that I’m still playing basketball, that I’m still going for that dream and I’m still trying my hardest.
[And] that I’m being a safe person for the kids that I coach. That I’m being what I didn’t necessarily have — especially [with] mental health and advocating for mental health and making sure like the kids are okay. They see me as a sister; they don’t just see me as a coach when they’re playing basketball. Yes, I’m the coach. But when we’re off court, I’m able to talk to them about school and life and how they are.
I’ve had lots of kids say to me that they see me as their big sister. And I think that’s something that I would really be proud of myself. Child me would look up and say thank you for being a sister to these kids.
Finish the sentence: “Sport has taught me…”
Sport has taught me how to be a superhero. Now, you might be thinking “that’s kind of cringe. Why would you say that?”
Well, I think about one of my favorite superheroes, Spider-Man. The whole point of Spider-Man is that anyone can be behind the mask. And that when he gets knocked down, he always gets back up. And like I said, when I get knocked down, I will always get back up.
I’m there to help the kids that are coming to the training sessions that want to get better, that talk to me. And I think that’s a superpower in itself to be able to speak to people, to be able to help them, to be able to see where they’re coming from or not, see where they’re coming from, but still be there for them.
And that’s what sports has taught me is that, you know, superheroes are real and it doesn’t mean that they have superpowers like in the movies. It just means that they have the qualities that a superhero has.
About Futures in Motion
Through the Futures in Motion program, Beyond Sport and New Balance Foundation support community organizations that use sport as a catalyst for positive change. The initiative helps young people build confidence, resilience and employability skills, while connecting local leaders to funding, learning opportunities and a global peer network. Charity Bounce, where Ebony-Jade Annor coaches, is one of the organizations supported through the program.
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