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Game to benefit pastor’s surgery
Published June 30, 2010
County pride will be on the line, but the real winner will be a local pastor.
Brandon Clay, a Loganville High School graduate, has assembled Walton and Gwinnett all-star teams for a benefit game that will raise funds to help the Rev. David Alan Dills.
The event is set for July 24 in Loganville.
Dills is pastor of Center Hill Baptist Church in Loganville. He has had 12 surgeries for broken vertebrae, his hip and gallbladder.
“Everything in the world that could go wrong has gone wrong,” he said last week. “Last year, in my neck, I had a piece of bone we didn’t even know had broken off and my spinal cord was 50 percent compressed.
“If I had fallen or somebody had bumped the back of my car, I would have been a quadriplegic.”
He’s had 12 surgeries and now is a candidate for another surgery that’s supposed to relieve chronic back pain.
Enter Clay.
A 22-year-old former Loganville basketball player, Clay is friends with one of Dills’ sons. He decided to put together a basketball game to raise money to help with Dills’ medical expenses.
Clay played AAU basketball in Gwinnett County, and at Loganville for Kacey Martin. Those experiences led him to meet several of the players who will make the game possible.
Scheduled to appear for Team Walton are former Loganville standouts Luke Baker, Wes Bowen, Stephen Cochran, Darren Ford, Tyler Gunett, Chris Roach, Clivins Volcy, Corey Ward. Kevin Wages, who played at both Loganville High and Loganville Christian Academy, is also expected to play, as is former LCA star Daniel Miller, now at Georgia Tech.
Headlining Team Gwinnett is Avery Dukes, who played for Butler in its run to the 2010 Final Four. Dukes played at South Gwinnett High School.
Channing Toney, who starred in Conference USA at University of Alabama-Birmingham after transferring from the University of Georgia, is also on the roster, as is former Loganville High starter Ron Morrow.
Clay said he has known Alan Dills for a couple of years and has come to admire David Dills and the family.
“I’ve seen him in physical pain and wished there was something I could do, but I’m just a college student myself,” Clay said.
Clay put his mind to basketball players he’s known through the years and found the event start to come together.
“This has been an amazing chain of events that has occurred,” he said.
Loganville Christian Academy agreed to let its gym be host to the event, and several players and even referees agreed to donate their time.
“It’s just been a real blessing to be involved with, really,” he said.
David Dills agreed.
“I don’t know what to do at this point except thank the Lord and see how it turns out,” he said.
The pastor said his church has been gracious enough to work with him through the health problems, allowing him to work half-days at home when it’s too tough to be in the office.
“A lot of pastors lose their jobs when their health goes downhill, and my church has gone through a lot of struggles because of my health,” he said, “but they’ve stuck with me big time.
“It’s been a blessing.”
Dills said he doesn’t want people thinking his family is “destitute” and said he told Clay, given the way people have stepped up to help with the basketball game, “You’re not telling them I’m dying, are you?”
Still, Clay wanted to put on a top-notch event. He said the game will be “definitely the most talent that’s been assembled in a gym in this county, easily, in my opinion.”
Tickets are $10, available at the door at 6:30 p.m. on game night.
Advance tickets went on sale Monday and are available by calling Clay at 770-403-2843. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. For more information, visit http://basketball showdown.org
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