KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Austin-East Magnet High School united the community for a charity basketball event to help raise money for their athletics department on Saturday.
At the roadrunners' home, alumni started warming up before the basketball game. Tatiana Nelson owns Fully Baked clothing brand and is a 2013 Austin-East alum.
One of the reasons Nelson said she started playing basketball was because as a kid she couldn't find something "entertaining or thrilling" at home. She also shared how challenging it was for her to like sports as a female.
"I did grow up with not a ton of money," Nelson said. "Also being a woman, we're not really looked at as to our let's put our daughter at sports, she wants to do something as well not just start son."
Nelson now participates at Austin-East to help younger athletes.
Football coach Rodney Billings started the charity event about a year ago and said the goal is to unite the community and have a lot of fun.
"I initially started back in last year for alumni football with your flag football," Billings said. "And it kind of just carried on from there."
At a school in Chattanooga, Billings said it was where he got the idea to bring it to Knoxville. He thought that alumni would want to do a charity like this one and play sports as Road Runners.
"Once a road runner? You're always a road runner," Billings said. "It never leaves, so I figured it'd be a great idea."
The money goes to wherever it's needed in the athletics department, he said. It may go in for the team or the cheerleading team or toward tributaries.
"That's uniforms, equipment, transportation, the things that come with the normal programming of has a high school athletics belt, the funds go towards that," said Tammi Campbell, executive principal of Austin-East Magnet High School.
The principal explained they raise money from selling tickets. They have a CashApp that's through the Austin Hill alumni group that sponsors this activity each year.
"This is an amazing event and as alumni as they can in principle this gives me great joy, great pride," Campbell said. "To see all of the... Road Runner family and nation come back to support the current and future Road Runners of the school."
For Nelson, she said, as a Road Runner, it's about the joy of giving and she hopes the future generations will benefit from these charity events.
"I'm gonna play the best way I can but I'm really just here to have fun," Nelson said. "I hope that it goes to helping our youth evolve, evolve into better young adults."