[花邊] 金塊替補Spencer Jones教導少年犯學生

原文網址：

https://www.denverpost.com/2025/10/11/spencer-jones-nuggets-player-nonprofit-school/

Spencer Jones 利用空閒時間教導曾涉刑事司法系統的學生
Nuggets Journal: Spencer Jones spends spare time teaching students who’ve
been through criminal justice system

史丹佛校友 Spencer Jones 現在簽的是雙向合約，代表他會在丹佛金塊隊與其發展聯盟附屬球隊 Grand Rapids Gold 之間分配時間。不過，他仍然抽出空檔從事社區服務。

Stanford alum is on two-way contract, meaning he’ll split his time between
Nuggets and Grand Rapids Gold. But he still is finding spare time to do
community work.

週三，在 Ball Arena 完成球員訓練工作一兩個小時後，Spencer Jones 出現在奧羅拉（Aurora），在白板上寫著數學公式。

An hour or two after he finished up his player development work at Ball Arenaon Wednesday, Spencer Jones was scribbling math equations on a whiteboard in
Aurora.

他以 NBA 薪資為例，向一群青少年解釋「平均數」與「中位數」的差異。他說，若五名球員中有四人年薪介於 200 萬至 400 萬美元之間，但第五人是 Nikola Jokic，那麼平均數就無法準確反映實際情況。

Using NBA salaries as an example, he walked through the difference between
mean and median to a handful of teenagers. Four players in a sample of five
might make between $2 million and $4 million per year, he explained, but if
the fifth is Nikola Jokic, the mean is no longer an accurate portrayal of thereal average.

Jones 可能不是本季 NBA 中你會常聽到的名字。他的雙向合約讓他在金塊與發展聯盟球隊之間來回奔波（如果你想計算職業球員的平均收入，他屬於薪資範圍的低端）。即便如此，他仍努力在空檔時間到一間名為 Generation Schools Network 的非營利機構，教導年輕人。

Jones is likely not a player you’ll hear about much this NBA season. He’s
on a two-way contract, meaning he splits his time between the Nuggets and
their G League affiliate, the Grand Rapids Gold. (He’s on the low end of the
salary scale if you’re trying to calculate the average earnings of a pro
basketball player.) Even so, he’s trying to find spare time whenever he can
to help teach young people at a local nonprofit called Generation Schools
Network.

「很明顯的，NBA 賽程緊湊，我的時間彈性也有限，所以我需要一個能真正產生影響的方式，而不只是出現打聲招呼而已，」Jones 對《丹佛郵報》說。

“Obviously, with a tough NBA schedule and my lack of flexibility sometimes,
I needed something where I could have an impact, rather than just show up andsay hi,” Jones told The Denver Post.

「通常我會在週初拿到行程表，然後挑選可以去的時段。我就會想：好，來上一小時的課，教他們政府三權分立的概念。這些都是我熟悉的內容，我可以在 30 分鐘內備好課，然後實際去教他們。這樣真的很有趣，因為我能真正教學，而不只是講講我工作的酷事。」

“Usually, I have my schedule before the week starts, and I just pick when I
can come in. I’m like, boom, let’s do this one-hour segment where we’re
learning about the three branches of government. It’s all stuff I know, so I
can prep up a lesson plan in like 30 minutes and come in and actually teach
them. That’s been fun, the ability to actually teach rather than just come
in and talk about the cool things about my job.”

這家非營利機構為曾涉刑事司法系統、無法重返傳統學校的科羅拉多州高中生提供教育機會。Jones 是金塊隊的二年級球員，大學時期在史丹佛就曾參與帕洛阿圖地區的弱勢兒童社區服務。他也希望能在丹佛找到回饋社會的方式。

The nonprofit provides high school education access to Colorado students who
have been through the criminal justice system and aren’t welcomed back into
traditional schools. Jones, who’s entering his second year with the Nuggets
after playing college ball at Stanford, used to do community work with
underprivileged children in Palo Alto. He wanted to find ways to give back inDenver, too.

後來他認識了一位 GSN 的前員工，參加了幾場活動。「然後我們決定做點更長期、更穩定的事，讓孩子們能更常見到我，」他說。

He eventually met a former employee of GSN and attended a couple of isolated
events. “Then we decided, let’s do something a little more ongoing,
something more consistent so the kids would see me more often,” he said.

在與學生互動的過程中，Jones 問他們心目中的領袖是誰。他發現學生們的答案多半是與他們生活無關的人——像是社群媒體創作者、音樂人，甚至是虛構角色。

While getting to know the students, Jones asked who they look up to as a
leader. He noticed that their answers to the ice-breaker were often people
not directly in their lives — social media content creators, musicians, even
fictional characters.

「從來沒有人真正關心他們……沒有穩定家庭的孩子總是很無聊，沒有人真正注意他們，
所以他們只想要有感覺，」Jones 說。「所以他們犯很多罪時，其實並沒有想太多明天、明年會怎樣。他們只是覺得：『沒人管我……我餓了，那我就去超商偷東西』，或是『打
架很好玩，至少有人跟我互動』……很多行為其實是因為從來沒人真正關心過他們。」

“They haven’t had anybody who pours into them. … Kids who don’t have a
steady home life, they’re bored all the time; nobody’s really paying too
much attention to them, so they just want to feel something,” Jones said. “
So a lot of the crimes they commit, they’re not really thinking too much
about the next day, the next year or whatever. It’s just, ‘No one really
cares. … I’m hungry, let me go steal from this gas station,’ or, ‘Let me
just get in a fight because it’s fun and I get to have an interaction with
somebody.’ … A lot of it’s just coming from (them) not having a lot of
people pouring into them.”

Jones 希望自己能成為那個導師，重點放在同理與關注，而非權威。他與該機構的合作計畫名為「Spencer’s Kids」，他曾帶幾位學生到 Ball Arena 參觀他的工作環境。他教
授的課程涵蓋領導力、政府與社會。

Jones hopes he can be that mentor, focusing on empathy and attentiveness to
the students rather than authority over them. His partnership with the
organization is called “Spencer’s Kids.” He’s taken a couple of them to
Ball Arena to show them around his office. The course taught by him is about
leadership, government and society.

課堂內容會非常多元。像是週三那天，他就講解了儲蓄與財務長期規劃的重要性——即使
是對 NBA 的中位數球員來說也一樣。

Class can go in all sorts of directions. Like on Wednesday, when he laid out
the importance of saving money and planning long-term with finances — even
for the median NBA player.

「我喜歡如此，因為教育對我來說非常重要，」Jones 說。「他們可以在這裡接受符合自身處境的教育，而不是被迫適應傳統教室……由我教他們比其他人容易，因為大家天生就
會被 NBA 球員吸引。」

“I love it because the education piece is huge to me,” Jones said. “They
can come here and have the education be built around their circumstances
instead of trying to get them to conform to the traditional classroom. … It’
s a lot easier for me to teach them than for some of the other people to,
just because naturally, you know, (people) love to gravitate to an NBA player.

「這也是我喜歡做這件事的原因。你已經吸引了他們的注意力，那就好好利用它，幫助他們走上正軌……這就是當運動員的優勢所在。」

“So that’s really why I like doing it. Look, you’ve got their attention.
You might as well use it to get them where they need to be. … That’s the
benefit of being an athlete.”

心得：

平常會看Denver Post看金塊相關新聞，沒想到看到這則新聞，覺得滿有趣也滿有正面意義，大家一般不會關心替補球員在幹嘛，不過我沒想到Spencer Jones居然是史丹佛（你看我平常多不關心），而且是真的有在學東西的那種學生。

只是現在金塊輪替也差不多要固定了，他想搶球隊第14、15人的位置不大好搶，無論如何做好事值得鼓勵，也希望他球場表現更好，可以讓他舉例薪水時比較開心一點（？）

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