Warriors program teaches incarcerated people how to become basketball coaches, future role modelsss

For over 20 years, Ray Woodfork has only known life surrounded by prison walls — a time he says has been the most challenging of his life.

“June 18, 2003,” he said. “That was the date I was incarcerated.”

Woodfork is serving a life sentence without parole. He shot and killed someone during an attempted robbery in 2001. The first 10 years of his incarceration were “bad times,” he said. “I was selling drugs, doing drugs, using illegal cellphones. The lifestyle that I lived on the streets, I just came in here and doubled down.”

One day, he said enough is enough. “March 18, 2014,” he remembered again. “I was sitting in the hole, back there for something that I did, and I just realized that this can’t be it.”

Oct. 15, 2024, might be another date he wants to remember.  That’s when he joined a new program at California State Prison Solano teaching him how to become a basketball coach. “It feels different holding the ball,” he said. “I’ve played basketball my whole life, but this feels like a new love for it.”

The Twinning Project, co-founded by Hilton Freund in England, paired Premier League soccer teams with local prisons to teach incarcerated people how to coach soccer. Freund, who said the program started in 2019, said teaching imprisoned people to become coaches means teaching them to become role models.

“You need good leadership,” Freund said. “Good timekeeping. Be able to resolve conflict. Anger management. All the kinds of characteristics that are missing or absent from these individuals at the time of their incarceration.”

For the first time, Freund is expanding the program outside of soccer. He is teaming up with the Golden State Warriors and the prison to teach incarcerated people how to coach basketball.

“The delivery of a program of this nature does a lot for the mental and physical well-being,” Freund said. “It reduces their idleness. We start to see improved relationships with the prisoners and their fellow inmates.”

The program is six weeks long. The inmates will go through classroom sessions and practices with coaches from the Warriors Basketball Academy. They will learn how to run drills, organize practices and become leaders.

“We just think it is a natural fit,” said Jeff Addiego, vice president of the Warriors Basketball Academy, a program that runs basketball camps around the Bay Area. “Hopefully, with all the combined efforts, we can really make an impact.”

After one day, Woodfork already felt an impact.

“It’s almost like being back in college or high school,” Woodfork said, “to be able to be a part of something that is bigger than yourself.”