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February 22, 2023

2023 SEC Women’s Basketball Community Service Team

By: SEC Staff
SECU (Twitter: @TheSECU)

Birmingham, Ala. – In a continuing effort to recognize the accomplishments of student-athletes beyond the field of competition, the SEC once again highlighted a Community Service Team for women’s basketball for the 2022-23 season.

This marks the 25th year for the SEC Community Service Team for women’s basketball as well as for men’s basketball. All league-sponsored sports have had a Community Service Team since 2004, with at-large teams for men’s and women’s sports being chosen from 1999-2003. The SEC began this concept with a football Community Service Team in 1994.

Ryan Cobbins • Alabama Senior • Guard/Forward • Kansas City, Kan.

A senior with the Crimson Tide, Ryan Cobbins leads the Alabama women’s basketball team in community service hours. Cobbins began working with the Rise Center over the summer. At the Rise Center, she helped young children both with and without special needs develop skills necessary to succeed in a school setting. Cobbins has also helped with UA’s Halloween Extravaganza, an event that celebrates Halloween and allows children within the community to play games and trick-or-treat with Alabama student-athletes. Additionally, Cobbins and the UA women’s basketball team spent time during the holiday season giving back to the community. The team and Cobbins attended the Houndstooth and Holly event hosted by the Capstone Village, a local residential community for residents 55 years or older, where they judged a holiday sweater contest. The team also spent time at the West Alabama Food Bank, preparing food to be distributed to young students and the community for the holidays.

Rylee Langerman • Arkansas Junior • Guard • Norman, Okla.

Rylee Langerman is one of the leaders in community service hours on the Arkansas women’s basketball team, a squad that is one of the frontrunners in community service hours as a team at Arkansas. This year alone, Langerman has volunteered for the Goodard School and has participated in Christmas shopping for adopted families. As someone who fights with Alopecia and lost all of her hair in middle school, she views the autoimmune disease as a blessing rather than burden, using her platform to encourage little boys and girls dealing with the same thing to always be self-confident. Earlier in the schoolyear, Langerman took part in a book signing for the release of Beanies, Ball Caps and Being Bald: Different Isn’t Bad, Different is Just Different. The children’s book opens the conversation for physical differences and sharing the basics of children who deal with Alopecia. Langerman served as one of the inspirations the author had to write this book. Following games, Langerman also signs autographs and spends a considerable amount of time after the games to take photos with fans and little girls who look up to her.

Honesty Scott-Grayson • Auburn Redshirt Senior • Guard • Brick, N.J.

Honesty Scott-Grayson has helped coordinate several community service projects along with the Auburn women’s basketball team. She helped with the Boys and Girls Club Christmas Party and has been part of the Breakfast Club at Drake Middle School in Auburn. She was part of the carpool service group at Richland Elementary School, and she has also participated in Hoops for Hope and with the Azalea Assisted Living center. Honesty is also part of the SEC Women’s Basketball Leadership Council.

Nina Rickards • Florida Senior • Guard • Queens, N.Y.

Florida senior Nina Rickards has found numerous ways to give back to the community during the 2022-23 season. In the summer, Rickards, alongside her teammates, assisted Habitat for Humanity in building homes for families in need of a decent place to live. During the early fall, Rickards assisted the Special Olympics of Florida with their visit with Gators’ women’s basketball, while also making time to visit patients in the pediatric cancer unit at Shands Hospital to brighten their day. The Queens, N.Y., native is also a member of Gators Lunch Buddies, a program where students eat lunch with multiple grades and classes at Terwilliger Elementary, in addition to joining the 5th graders for recess and acting as mentors for all of the students.

Brittney Smith • Georgia Senior • Forward • Orlando, Fla.

Brittney Smith has been a leader in several community service projects for Coach ABE and the Georgia women’s basketball program. Smith and the Lady Bulldogs have a partnership with Stroud Elementary, where the team routinely visits to read to fifth graders. Recently, the team visited the Manor Lake Assisted Living and Memory Care Center and spent the afternoon there playing games with the residents. Georgia also paid a visit to the Athens Salvation Army over the Holidays, where they served food in the soup kitchen and helped in the warehouse. In December, under the leadership of Aliyah Gregory, Smith and the Lady Bulldogs hosted a Toy Drive, where fans could drop off donations to be given to domestic violence shelters. The drive, which was started at UCF in 2015, was a huge success during its first season in Athens.

Blair Green • Kentucky Graduate • Guard • Harlan County, Ky.

Blair Green has donated more than 80 hours of community service during her time competing at the University of Kentucky. She has done everything from pack food at God’s Pantry, to write Valentine’s Day cards for a local nursing home, to participate in several walks to end Alzheimer’s, to lead a group of underserved children through the Mamba and Mambacita Skills Academy. Several of her most outstanding services include orchestrating a “606 Camp” for Eastern Kentucky flood relief, washing children’s feet and fitting them for new shoes through Samaritan’s Feet International and deep cleaning the homeless shelter at the Lexington Hope Center. Through the “606 Camp,” she and several of her local teammates raised more than $3,000 for the flood victims of Kentucky, guiding children through a basketball skills camp.

Emily Ward • LSU Senior • Forward •Bossier City, La.

Emily Ward has engaged with a variety of organizations during her time at LSU. She has participated in a Big Buddy mentorship program as well as a bike drive that provides 425+ bikes in several cities across Louisiana. She worked with an elementary school during the team’s trip for the Maui Classic. She also works with Tiger Life on many events such as Thankful Tiger and BooZar. In addition, Ward is a two-year member of the SEC Basketball Leadership Basketball Leadership Council.

Madison Scott • Ole Miss Junior • Forward • Indian Head, Md.

A member of the Ole Miss student-athlete advisory committee, Madison Scott partnered with Ashley Homestore’s Hope to Dream event in providing 50 beds in Tunica, Quitman and Lafayette counties. She also assisted with local Morning Carpool’s in local elementary schools around the area while greeting children exiting the carpool line and busses and worked with Reading with the Rebels in visiting local elementary schools in the Lafayette and Oxford area where she read and engaged with children in the classrooms. She was a team member in the Jackson, Miss. Water Crisis Collection in assisting in the collection of over 10,000 water bottles for the city as they were battling their water crisis. Scott also joined the Ole Miss women’s basketball team in supporting campus Panhellenic chapters in their imitative to raise awareness to the campus and the community on the importance of cancer. In addition, she worked with the Feed the ‘Sip team in the collection of over 7,000 non-perishable food items to children in Tunica and Quitman County. While in the Bahamas, helped with a basketball clinic and reading with the Rebels session at the St. Francis and Joseph School in Nassau, Bahamas. She worked to help collect over 500 hygiene products on road trips as a part of the Hygiene Hijack team. Scott is also a member of the CASA Adopt-a-Child team in providing Christmas items for six foster children.

Anastasia Hayes • Mississippi State Graduate •Guard • Murfreesboro, Tenn.

This year Anastasia Hayes has participated in multiple community service projects throughout the Starkville community. Anastasia has been active member in the local Boys & Girls Club, where she gets to interact with children in the community. Hayes has also spent countless hours at the Starkville Human Society along with joining her teammates as McKee Park as part of Service Dawgs Day. Anastasia has also participated in the SOUP Basketball Clinic as well as Trick or Treat with our Dawgs.

Sarah Linthacum • Missouri Sophomore • Forward • Jefferson City, Mo.

Sarah Linthacum has gone above and beyond in providing acts of service to her immediate community and the state of Missouri. Linthacum has spent time mentoring and serving at the Boys and Girls Club of Missouri and played a pivotal role in Missouri basketball’s Hoops for a Cause Boy’s and Girl’s Club Fundraiser. In addition, she has led a Read A-Thon at Gant Elementary School in Columbia and assisted on multiple occasions with restoration efforts at the JW Blind Boone Community Center and the Coyote Hill Children’s Home. In addition, Linthacum has repeatedly donated her time to Special Olympics Missouri volunteering at numerous events and fundraisers throughout the year. She also takes an active role in the Missouri’s Tiger Paws Program which seeks to improve participation in sport by giving exclusive access to young children and partnering them with current players.

Sania Feagin • South Carolina Sophomore • Forward • Ellenwood, Ga.

Sania has been committed to serving throughout her career, especially young people in the community. She is always up for a school visit, happy to do anything from an early-morning High-Five Friday at a local elementary school to mentoring at an area middle school. She participated in Christmas Giving, sorting non-perishable food items for the elderly during Christmas as well as March Madness Reading event and a Pen-Pals program.

Tess Darby • Tennessee Junior • Guard/Forward • Greenfield, Tenn.

As a member of Tennessee’s VOLeaders Academy, Tess Darby embarked on a leadership and service trip to Rwanda in the summer of 2022. While there, she participated in “Together in Sport,” helping promote healthy habits and sport to local children as well as helping run a women’s empowerment program teaching teenage girls how to sew as a means for steady employment. She also was involved with “Shooting Touch,” an organization using basketball to provide health and wellness services to young children and women; “Musanze Tennis Club,” where she helped facilitate games and drills with the kids in this program, many of whom never played tennis or had access to the sport; and “Sunzu Village Sport Festival,” featuring a day of play with children in the village, where a brand-new playground was unveiled and she helped teach the children how to use it. Darby also participated in several other outreach opportunities. She was involved with Hoops for Hope, a fun day of basketball with the Tennessee women’s and men’s teams for individuals with Down Syndrome; Reach for the Summitt 5K, serving as a cheerleader for participants in the Pat Summitt Foundation fundraising event; Voloween, a Tennessee Athletics Halloween event for campus staff families; Young Williams Animal Shelter, volunteering to feed animals, clean cages and give walks; and Adopt a Family, a Christmas event partnering Tennessee Women’s Basketball and East Tennessee Children’s Hospital.

McKinzie Green • Texas A&M Graduate • Guard • Manvel, Texas

McKinzie Green was an active participant in the Rev’ved Up to Read 2nd grade reading program. She also helped build bikes for children in the Brazos Valley over the Christmas Break. Green was a part of the AggiesCan Food Drive, the largest student-ran canned food drive in the nation and helped provide meals during Thanksgiving to families in Aggieland. Additionally, the graduate student wrote letters to first responders to show her appreciation for their work and sacrifice.

Marnelle Garraud • Vanderbilt Graduate • Guard • Lynn Mass.

In her first season with the program Garraud has contributed to several of the Commodores’ community service efforts throughout the year. She has visited on numerous occasions with students at Eakin Elementary School, providing a mentor and leadership to underprivileged children, and has also helped support Next Steps at Vanderbilt, a four-year inclusive higher education program committed to providing neurodiverse students an inclusive, transformational postsecondary education in academics, social and career development, and independent living, while honoring equality, compassion, and excellence in all endeavors. Garraud has also supported the Mother to Mother organization, which helps low-income families thrive by providing essential resources so that under-resourced children in the Nashville community can be safe and healthy. She has also been active within Vanderbilt’s graduate program helping provide support and information to prospective students since arriving on campus last summer.