Grizzlies star Jaylen Wells joins call to save Sonoma State sports programs
Sunday night's NBA All-Star game featured a team of "Rising Stars" including Jaylen Wells, a Memphis Grizzlies rookie who started his college career at Sonoma State University.
On Monday, Wells returned to his home campus to add his voice to the calls to save the school's athletic programs.
It was pretty quiet on the Sonoma State campus, and not just because of the President's Day holiday.
"The overall environment is very down, and you can tell that people are, like, upset," said junior Maya Gutierrez, a member of the women's soccer team.
A pall has been cast over the school with the announcement last month that half a dozen academic majors and virtually all sports will be eliminated after this semester due to budget cuts.
"It's kind of like losing a family," said Gutierrez's teammate, Taylor Hodges. "I mean, they're kind of breaking us up and, like, 'Ok, figure it out.' So that kind of sucks."
There have already been protests at the school over the proposed cuts, with athletes and coaches promising a legal battle to stop the programs from being shut down.
So when Jaylen Wells paid his former school a visit after playing in Sunday's All-Star Game, it felt less like a celebration and more like a rescue mission.
"I'm just hoping that we can find a way," he told a gathering of student athletes and media in the gym. "I'm not sure entirely how I'm able to help, but that's what I'm trying to do, you know, putting it out there as much as possible."
Wells played for the Division II Seawolves for two years before transferring to Washington State, where he became a star. He was drafted in the second round by the Memphis Grizzlies, quickly becoming a starter and earning a spot in Sunday's 2025 All-Star line-up.
He told the crowd at Sonoma State that it was on the Seawolves -- during his first year when the team went 3-25 -- that he learned his most important life lessons.
"I think I learned a lot from that," he said, smiling. "I think it's helped me to this day, to take the positives out of all the negatives that happened that season. And just being with that team. If you saw us, how we interacted with each other at the end of the year, after our last game, you would think that we were 25-3."
And now he serves as an inspiration to students who may be doubting their own futures.
"Thank you very much for showing our student athletes that it is possible to come from a Division II school in a small market and get to the top of the hill," said one coach in the audience. "Thank you very much!"
Val Verhunze knows about battling long odds. He started the school's golf team in 2003, winning a National Championship just six years later. His message to the students is to resist despair, even though things seem pretty bleak.
"That's what we have, is we have hope," said Verhunze. "And we tell our players, we recruit our players, we talk about hope all the time. And that's a driving force in anyone's life. And I believe that's true in this situation more than any time that I've been here in my 22 years."
Wells said he's not sure what he can do, other than keep the issue before the public. And he said he wishes the university had been more open about what they planned to do.
"There wasn't really much of an opportunity for them to fight back against this," he said. "So I'm just hoping that they give us more time to, you know, find a solution for it."
The proposed cuts would eliminate 27 coaches and end sports for 227 student athletes. The administration says the budget cuts are necessary because of low enrollment. The athletes wonder how eliminating the things people enjoy most about college will solve that problem.
A town hall meeting to discuss the budget cuts is scheduled for Wednesday morning on campus.
