Second annual Winner’s Circle Weekend uplifts KC youth

Winners Circle Weekend 2024 // Photo by Najah Shields

Empowerment, upliftment, and passion were poured into our community this June 27-30 at Winners Circle Weekend 2024. Over the weekend, something special happened here in Kansas City. Multiple professional athletes, born and raised here, came to give back to everyone—with the youth first in mind.

For the second year in a row, Winners Circle Weekend has been filled with multiple free events that feature access to professional athletes and prominent figures who are natives of KC. Professional athletes, and founders, Ishmail Wainwright of the NBA and Charles Harris of the NFL, felt that there was a need to showcase positive influence through sports—This led to the creation of Winners Circle Weekend in 2023.

This year, they added KC native professional athletes Shaquille Harrison, Ronnie Bell, and Kendall Blanton to host this special weekend as well. Alongside these five professional athletes were a couple of their business partners, along with co-founders Dorian Giles and Renee Mangum, helping push the vision to life for the second year in a row.

These athletes dedicated the 2024 Winners Circle Weekend to providing a business networking panel for young professionals, elite sport skills camps for both youth basketball and football players, a celebrity basketball game, and an impactful field day that helped bring our community closer together.

Winners Circle Weekend 2024 // Photo by Najah Shields

Kicking off the weekend was a moderated panel ‘SYN-RGY’ that featured panelists who work across KC professional sports and businesses. The panel featured conversations about what it takes to create a business, working in sports, and their journey along the way. Guests mentioned after the panel how overwhelmingly inspired they felt by how in depth the panelist went with their entrepreneurial journey and how sitting in a room filled with many prominent figures from the KC area made anything feel possible.

The day after the panel, Winners Circle hosted a celebrity basketball game which many local influencers, entertainers, and athletes from Kansas City participated in. Team football and team basketball battled it out on the court for the crown of the City of Champions. Kansas City Chiefs players Cornell Powell and Chukwuebuka Godrick participated in the festivities in support of their NFL counterparts. The basketball game was also in collaboration with Show Me You Care KC—another organization dedicated to providing access and resources to our community as a whole.

Winners Circle Weekend 2024 // Photo by Amir Williams

While all events were incredible, the youth sport camps were arguably the most special throughout the weekend. Ish Wainright and Shaquille Harrison hosted the ‘Ish Wainright Skills Academy’ for both middle and high school youth athletes. Wainright is one of the children of the legendary coach Calvin Wainright, who helped cultivate Kansas City basketball over the years.

The Skills Academy camp included both middle and high school boys & girls, where they were trained by several noteworthy local basketball coaches and players throughout the day. Kids were able to break out into groups to run through several efficient basketball drills led by players who play in the NBA, G-league, and other acclaimed organizations to help continue developing their game and mentality.

Coaches passionately assisted kids through each drill station with the emphasis of “high energy” being important for anyone’s game. Coaches Harrison and Wainwright floated through the skills academy helping kids’ shot etiquette, showing proper forms for particular drills, and also dropping knowledge of what it takes to make it to the next level. The players took time to sign autographs and take pictures with the youth athletes as they closed out the camp.

The Elite Football Camp on the final afternoon of the weekend was just as electrifying as the basketball camp. Parents and young athletes showed up excited and ready to get to work on Lincoln Prep’s football field. Harris—an alum of Lincoln Prep—assisted in bringing this fairly new field to life in 2018. He made a $100,000 donation, along with the $250,000 donation from the NFL, for the new field allowing the school to be able to host home football games and more after years of no access.

Winners Circle Weekend 2024 Staff // Photo by Amir Williams

Blanton—a 2x Super Bowl Champion—also helped put the camp together and hosted alongside Harris. The youth athletes that signed up were able to work on, both their mental and physical agility, while taking gems from multiple coaches who had volunteered their time. Harris and Blanton were also going around to each group of young men to assist with physically running through the drills and offering ardent advice to kids who hoped to follow in their footsteps to the NFL. San Francisco 49ers wide receiver and KC native Ronnie Bell also assisted in putting together this phenomenal football camp. Three youth players were selected at the end of the camp to receive MVP awards for their hard work that afternoon.

Winners Circle Weekend is the beginning of something special for years to come in Kansas City. This second annual weekend has created many opportunities and exposure for the community of KC and they hope to grow even bigger in years to come.