{"id":22407,"date":"2013-07-08T16:17:17","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T20:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=22407"},"modified":"2013-07-08T16:18:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-08T20:18:11","slug":"local-pro-athletes-foundation-helps-shape-lives-of-teens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=22407","title":{"rendered":"Local Pro Athletes Found- ation Helps Shape Lives Of Teens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some may know him as <strong>Tarence<\/strong> or <strong>TK,<\/strong> but to many youth in the Bay area, he is becoming known as their Hometown Hero. When we hear about professional basketball players in the news, we usually hear about how they\u2019re shaping up on the court or what they recently did wrong off the court. It\u2019s not often that we hear about the positive impact professional players are striving to make in their fans\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tarence Kinsey<\/strong>, a 29-year-old veteran of six professional basketball seasons in the NBA and overseas is a positive example of a professional athlete that carries strong influence to children whose futures he is shaping.<\/p>\n<p>A 2002 graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School, the Tampa native created the Tarence Kinsey Foundation in 2009. It was a longtime aspiration for the 6-foot-6 shooting guard\/small forward, who helped lead the University of South Carolina to back-to-back NIT championships.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kinsey<\/strong> has spent time with Memphis and Cleveland in the NBA, and his basketball career has taken him around the globe, playing professionally in Turkey, Italy, and Spain, the latter where he was a member of Unicaja M\u00e1laga of the Liga ACB this season.<\/p>\n<p>Over the last year, the TK Foundation ( www.tarencekinseyfoundation.org) has contributed to assisting three students receive full college scholarships by supplying them with mentors, tutors and educational guidance. In addition to <strong>Tarence\u2019s <\/strong>foundation, he recently made a significant financial contribution to Mt. Pleasant Middle School in Tampa to help provide more text books and computers for the school.<\/p>\n<p>The idea for his foundation was sparked when he walked through a local mall with his mother one evening.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe saw groups of teenage kids with their pants hanging down low and we noticed how they wore grimaces on their faces and showed no respect and no manners,\u201d <strong>Kinsey<\/strong> recalled. \u201cI was raised to say \u2018Yes, ma\u2019am\u2019 and \u2018No, ma\u2019am.\u2019 And show common courtesy like saying please and thank you, and opening doors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEssentially, you as a person are like your own business. It is important to represent yourself in respectful ways and make your world a better place by how you live, how you act and how you treat others and yourself,\u201d <strong>Kinsey<\/strong> added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kinsey<\/strong> is back in the Tampa area this summer and preparing for his foundation\u2019s annual celebration dinner on Saturday, July 13 at the Embassy Suites in downtown Tampa. The event is scheduled for 6 p. m. to 10 p. m. All proceeds will benefit the foundation\u2019s programs.<\/p>\n<p>At this year\u2019s dinner, the foundation\u2019s \u201cCircle Me\u201d mentorship program will be showcased, and students will be recognized.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kinsey<\/strong> is also coordinating a summer training camp for teenagers, and the dates will be released soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some may know him as Tarence or TK, but to many youth in the Bay area, he is becoming known as their Hometown Hero. When we hear about professional basketball players in the news, we usually hear about how they\u2019re shaping up on the court or what they recently did wrong off the court. It\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}