#282: March Madness With Military Basketball Association (MBA) Founder/Coach & Star Player

“March Madness” is here! My favorite sporting event is the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. And on this week’s podcast, we’re talking basketball and staying fit in March with a coach and player, a pair of Army veterans. One of them created a league that’s helping to save service members’ lives. We dig into the MBA (not the NBA), how sports help the military, and how my TV station WTVM is involved with their upcoming championship game.

(3:10) Columbus GA native Cedarius Brantley served 9 years in the Army. How does he stay fit post-military? It involves 5am practices as a player for the Fort Benning Yellow Jackets in the Military Basketball Association. His coach, Retired 1st Sgt. Angel "Ace" Acevedo, co-founded the MBA nearly a decade ago, a league that supports nearly a thousand players, both veteran and active duty serving our nation.

(9:40) “Ace” talks about how and why they started the basketball league, after he was a coach for much of his time in the military. Cedarius or “CB” also talks about how sports help with the stress of service.

(18:06) In his 25 year Army career, Acevedo had 6 year-long combat deployments. Part of the mission of their MBA is using sports to rebuild camraderie and community - providing an outlet for trauma and combat-related PTSD, to ultimately help prevent suicides. Players see the court as a safe space.

(29:20) What’s it like for him to coach other veterans and soldiers, seeing them develop on and off the court? The non-profit MBA runs a global league featuring more than 50 teams from all military branches.

(36:44) Later this month, WTVM will broadcast the Military Basketball Association Playoffs Eastern Conference championship being played at Columbus State University with the Fort Benning Yellow Jackets, on a 10-game win streak now, hoping to be there. That big game Sunday March 29 at 3 p-m, free to attend. You can also watch the entire game on our Peachtree Sports Network 9.3 or WTVM live streaming on our Roku, Amazon Fire, AppleTV, and news app.

I close out the episode in prayer. Thanks for listening! Subscribe and follow “Run The Race” and share it with others!

On your journeys of fitness and faith, we are helping you stay motivated to be stronger physically and spiritually on the new RUN THE RACE podcast. Host Jason Dennis - veteran WTVM news anchor, marathon runner and missionary, will talk to experts and people with inspiring stories as we dig deeper into the mind, body and soul.