Former Cicero-North Syracuse basketball captain Zerrie Brown got choked up when talking to coach Kyle Martin about how thankful he was that a friend‘s mom had bought him seven meals from Avicolli’s.
The entire C-NS community has rallied around Brown over the past week as he deals with a tragedy no 18-year-old should ever have to face.
His mother, Dawn Brown, died in a fatal car crash at Moyers Corners intersection on Sunday.
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A group including coach Martin and a friend’s mom Christina Docteur sprung into action to create a GoFundMe to help Zerrie in his time of need.
Martin says the basketball team will continue to provide support for Brown throughout the basketball season. He says the team will do a game in honor of Dawn and sell shirts with the initials “DB” in a heart with the team logo. He also said that some have suggested hosting a tournament in honor of Dawn.
Zerrie graduated from Cicero-North Syracuse High School in June. Martin described him as “the world’s best kid,” and “the greatest teammate anyone could imagine.”
Coaches and teammates have countless examples of how Zerrie was always there for them both on and off the court.
“Zerrie has always been there for me since we met in middle school,” said TJ Coppock, Brown’s teammate and friend. “When things got hard, he had my back to make life clear.”
Coppock remembered a time he was having a bad day at his dad‘s house and Zerrie jumped on his bike and rode to Coppock’s house to play basketball with him until the sun went down.
“Nothing extravagant, it was just him showing me he cared made everything better and to this day, he is still that same stand-up guy reaching to make the world better around him,“ Coppock said.
That leadership and willingness to support his teammates was evident to those outside of the team as well and that’s why he was named team captain his senior year.
The Northstars were without a captain to start the 2023-24 season. After the first game of the year, school board member Xavier Moody-Wusik reached out to coach Martin to express how impressed he was with Zerrie‘s leadership and energy despite not getting in the game. After speaking with Moody-Wusik, Martin made a call to Zerrie to see if he’d be interested in being the captain. Full of excitement, Zerrie accepted the position and fully embraced the responsibilities that came with it.
Teammate Rosco Polos experienced Zerrie’s support firsthand. Polos said in practices, the pair battled to play the same position. On game day when Polos was the one on the court, Zerrie was his biggest hype man and was always pushing him.
For a kid who was always there for his team, his team can now be there for him.
His former basketball teammates, and the C-NS community as a whole, are doing their part to help Zerrie in his time of need.
Zerrie and Dawn lived alone together, so former teammate Colin Deitz and his mother wanted to find a way to help Zerrie financially.
That’s when they, with Martin, decided to create the GoFundMe to help.
“The Cicero-North Syracuse basketball program is a family and when one of ours needs some help that’s what we do,” Martin said in a post on X.
That‘s been proven true. Martin’s post included the link to the GoFundMe which was opened on Tuesday and has over 380 donations for over $24,000 as of Wednesday afternoon.
