Paying it forward: Quindell Brice gives back to his community through basketball

Basketball has helped change Quindell Brice's life.

He excelled at this sport as a student at Pocono Mountain West, where he was an All-State selection and a vital member of the 2011-12 district championship team. Basketball also paid for college, where he later played for East Stroudsburg University and was the second-leading scorer his senior year.

Now, Brice wants to use the sport that gave him so much and pay it forward to the next generation of kids in the community, which started at his alma mater and under one of his former coaches, Rich Williams.

"There's a lot of dudes who've come in and out of West and played here and dropped a lot of blood and sweat, and you love every one of them because they've given us all they got," Williams said, who's now West's head varsity coach. "But some players end up being your guys, and Quindell was one of my guys."

Williams and Brice's relationship goes back to middle school, where Brice was on the seventh and eighth-grade team and Williams was the coach. The latter remembers when his player was a "knucklehead" and had to be kept out of trouble at times but applauded how Brice figured it out and now wants to give back.

"A lot of guys don't really care about that," Williams said. "Don't want to say selfish, but they come out of college and do their thing. So with him wanting to give back, he knew that he wanted to make a difference in young kids lives.

"So it was a no-brainer for me when I took the varsity job to get him on as a youth coach."

After that, Brice became the seventh grade coach. But that experience was short-lived.

"We didn't have a lot of gym space, so I would literally have 15-20 kids on one court," Brice said. "I didn't enjoy that aspect of it, but I did enjoy the skill development part."

Williams noticed Brice's displeasure as well, but when Brice voiced his interest in the training and development part of basketball, that opened up another opportunity for Brice to thrive - West basketball camp.

The camp, an in-house camp at West, was started by Williams' predecessor, Brad Pensyl. When he started it, there was no East and West, just Pocono Mountain High School, and Williams went to the camp as a student. After the schools split, Pensyl became West's head coach; the rest is history.

"What if we use that avenue for Brice to try to give back to kids and get him in a spot where he could he could teach kids the game?" Williams thought. "He could teach them how to play the right way, train them offensively and try to bolster the level of basketball up on this mountain."

It worked out well, as Brice had the chance to showcase his passion for skill development. He still assists with the camp, but he still wanted to reach the greater Pocono community. His desire to do so led him to meet Kenneth "Gucc" Robinson, a ProScholarsAthletics (PSA) assistant in The Bronx, New York.

"I first met Quindell through coach Williams," Robinson said. "Williams and I got in contact just by me watching former West and current VCU player Christian Fermin at the Hoop Group Future All-American Camp. By the time he was in 11th grade, he put me in touch with Williams and I explained, 'Hey, down here in the Bronx he could start on the EYBL team because we didn't have a center.'

"In the midst of all that, Williams connected me with Brice because that was also Fermin's trainer."

The hope was that Robinson could inform Brice about the politics in basketball and how to use it in a more advantageous manner. Brice and Williams gelled well, and the partnership was a key step in creating something Brice wanted to accomplish - hosting a camp on his own.

"You can impact more kids at once. I think that's the that's the biggest thing," Brice said. " I've done West camp, obviously, but it's different when I'm in charge of everything.

"I always say this: Coach Williams is like a mentor. He actually brought the idea to me, and I met Gucc through Coach Williams. He presented the idea, and then Gucc and I got on the phone and talked about it, and we just took off from there."

After some deliberation, Robinson and Brice created a camp that teaches skill development and serves as a final tune-up before basketball tryouts. They called it "Train2Gain."

"The name speaks for itself," Brice said when it came to naming the event. "When you train, you want to get better, right? So you train to gain.

"We got the kids for three hours in a gym. And we're not just talking in putting kids through drills, we're actually going into detail like, 'Why should you do this? Why should you do that? When should you do it?' Drills are good, but a lot of young kids don't have the natural basketball instinct to know when or why to do certain moves. So we're talking about it. We're practicing over and over. And hopefully these guys can gain some knowledge and some more skill before the season."

The first year of the camp was in 2022, where Brice and his staff welcomed 60 kids on the first day, and 52 on the second day. Brice was overwhelmed with joy with how the inaugural one turned out, but when planning began for the second year, he wanted to add more.

"In the first year, we didn't have any speakers," Brice said. "The following year, I said, 'I want to add some value.' So we had some speakers come the second year."

That speaker, in addition to Brice and Robinson, was former Division I basketball player Kashaun Hicks, who played for Norfolk State's NCAA Tournament team in 2021.

About 30 kids came in 2023, and while it's smaller in attendance, Brice enjoyed personally engaging with each kid.

"I was able to pull multiple kids to the side and say something," Brice said. "It wasn't too much or overbearing, which I don't like because again, I want to make that impact. And I want them to leave with something.

"Even if it only impacted one kid, I did my job."

He's considering other ways to improve Train2Gain, from another speaker to another trainer, to add a fresh voice to the team.

In the meantime, however, Brice already has his next venture in motion - a weekly skills and drills session, followed by open gym every Sunday. It started in November and it'll through April 28, and it's open to all students in the district.'

"We're gonna do skills and drills from 1 p.m. - 2 p.m., and then we're gonna go open gym from 2 p.m. - 4 p.m.," Brice said.

The inspiration was to help kids who did not make the team and give them a chance to improve via training instead of doing nothing while those who made their respective teams continue to improve. It also provides an option to play in an area devoid of many alternatives.

"Think about it: in the winter time, no one is going to the outdoor courts, we don't have rec centers or rec leagues," Brice said. "So being able to come here every Sunday, get training and play pickup games, what more can you ask for?"

Over a decade after his high school career ended, Brice has taken charge of giving back to the community that's given him so much. And when you talk to his peers, you see that the work hasn't gone unnoticed.

"I think Brice is doing a tremendous job," Robinson said. "There's great value in a guy seeing a small flame and turning it into a roaring blaze. Very few human beings on earth are willing to and can do that. Quindell Brice can.

"I don't think people in the Pocono area realize just how special to Brice is and how rare of a gem he is to have in their presence."

This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: PM West great Quindell Brice gives back to his community through hoops