HAVERHILL — For new Whittier Tech Wildcats basketball coach Tom Sipsey, there's more to going out for a sport than putting in long hours of practice and working out.
Sipsey, a onetime Central Catholic and Merrimack College standout on the court, expects something else from his players: community service.
Every Wednesday, from 5 to 6 p.m., Sipsey and his team head for the Boys and Girls Club of Haverhill, where they provide a clinic for fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders. They work on shooting, dribbling, defensive tactics and team work.
Before the clinic gets underway, the Wildcats put their younger charges through a regimen of calisthenics — push-ups, sit-ups, running in place among other activities — to help them get in shape.
Helping Sipsey run the clinic is Juan Ruiz, director of sports and fitness for the Boys and Girls Club.
Typically, the younger players and their mentors are divided into various groups that work on a particular aspect of the game, such as shooting lay-ups. When Coach Sipsey blows his whistle, the younger players move on to the next group.
Ruiz, who has worked at the club for three years, said the value for the grade-school kids is, "It gives them someone to look up to."
Sipsey, who required all of his players to join the club, said he enjoyed helping kids at the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence improve their skills while he was playing for Merrimack.
Putting his players in a leadership role by sharing their skills with younger kids is a "super-positive" experience for them, he said.
Like Ruiz, he said he likes the idea of expecting his players to be "positive role models."
Dillon Ryan, quarterback for the Wildcats 12-0 Superbowl champs this past fall and a starter on Sipsey's squad, said he thinks the weekly clinics will help the younger kids develop into better players.
"If I had this when I was younger, I would have become a better player," he said. Ryan, a senior, plans to attend college next year. A Haverhill man, he graduated from Nettle Middle School before moving on to Whittier Tech.
Navin Cruz, 10, a fifth-grader, said he looks forward to the after-school sessions with Ryan and his teammates.
"They are helping me better my game," Navin said.
Marck Galva, a Whittier Tech sophomore, said, "It's a great thing to give the kids what we have learned."
Some of the grade-schoolers know their mentors quite well. Fifth-grader Scotty Tavarez, 10, for example, a solidly built, athletic young man, is the younger brother of Ryan Grant, a Whittier Tech freshman on the basketball team.
Scotty enjoys getting the pointers from his big brother and other Wildcats, but he said his favorite sport is football.
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