The Los Angeles Lakers will hold a school supplies drive at Friday night’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves in connection with their annual Chick Hearn Night.
Fans are asked to bring new school supplies to the Chick Hearn Booth in Star Plaza in front of Staples Center.
Supplies sought include spiral notebooks, composition books, packs of college-ruled filler paper; folders; packs of dividers with tabs; boxes of pencils; boxes of blue or black pens; highlighters; pairs of safety scissors; manual pencil sharpeners; rulers; dictionaries; thesauruses; and calculators.
Donors will receive a Lakers pin.
All donated supplies will benefit the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Homeless Education Program.
All fans attending the game will receive a Chick Hearn key ring.
Since Hearn’s death in 2002, the Lakers have designated their home game closest to the Nov. 27 anniversary of his birth as Chick Hearn Night, which also includes the presentation of scholarships to two students attending the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
This year’s scholarship recipients are Caroline Deisley and Robby Kolanz.
Deisley is a junior from Atlanta studying broadcast journalism and sports media studies and business and hopes to be a sports anchor. She is a multimedia journalist and weather anchor with Annenberg TV News, USC’s student- run television channel.
Deisley is also a social media assistant with USC’s athletic department, helping manage its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, contributes to the department’s blog, USCRipsIt, and runs a live chat during Trojan football games. She has been an intern with Fox Sports Digital and Mandalay Sports Media.
Kolanz, a graduate of Palos Verdes High School, is a junior broadcast and digital journalism major who also has a minor in sports media studies.
Kolanz is a multimedia journalist with Annenberg TV News, an intern with USC’s Sports Information Department and a receiver on the Trojan football team. He has spent two summers as an intern with Student Sports, a high school sports events and media company.
Kolanz is a grandson of retired KTLA-TV Channel 5 reporter Stan Chambers.
Hearn was the Lakers play-by-play announcer from the start of their radio broadcasts during the 1961 NBA playoffs until his death. He coined many phrases, including slam dunk, which have transcended basketball into use in everyday life.
Hearn’s skill as an announcer is credited with helping turn the Lakers from a team that drew 4,008 fans for its first game in Los Angeles in 1960 to becoming one of the nation’s most popular teams at the time of his death.
—City News Service