Luka Mirkovic is used to jostling with the biggest of the big men for an advantage that usually comes down to fingertips. Tuesday evening the 6-foot-11-inch junior center finally caught a break.
It was a matter of feet rather than inches when the Northwestern men’s basketball team hosted 20 kids from the Children’s Heart Foundation, the nation’s leading nonprofit organization dedicated to helping children with congenital heart defects. The event was held as a lead-in to Dance Marathon, the largest philanthropic event on campus. The CHF kids watched the last 30 minutes of NU’s practice before being introduced to the players and coaches. The players then shot around, signed autographs and posed for pictures with the kids and their families.
“The kids had a lot of fun shooting around on the bigger hoops with us older guys and us older guys showing them a couple things,” senior guard Michael Thompson said. “It was great for us. The players and the coaches, they had a lot of fun as well.”
In addition to hosting Tuesday’s event, coach Bill Carmody has pledged to donate $1,000 to the DM student group that brings the most members to NU’s game against Iowa at Welsh-Ryan Arena on Thursday night. Carmody’s donation will be added to the group’s DM contribution to CHF.
“I’ve had someone that I know who’s had a heart defect also,” Carmody said. “So it just hit me. It’s a great cause, and when you see those little faces out there and those smiles and they just light up, it makes you feel good.”
The team has suffered of late, most recently dropping a 65-41 decision to Penn State on Sunday that marred any NCAA Tournament designs. But the mood on Tuesday evening was far from somber.
“As noble as they are, it’s a half hour they don’t have to listen to me yelling at them,” Carmody said.
The 30-minute shootaround was much less structured than NU’s usual practice grind. At one point Mirkovic lifted up three children and helped them to dunk. NU’s leading scorer junior forward John Shurna, who has struggled of late thanks to injuries, spent most of the ‘practice’ playing a light game of keep-away with a few of the children.
Sophomore guard Austin Nichols said that the team was excited to contribute to the CHF cause.
“This means the world to them,” Nichols said. “They’re going through a lot of things. Most of us have no idea of how hard it is or what the struggle they’re dealing with on a daily basis. It’s an opportunity for them to let go of all their worries and come out and have a good time with us.”
