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Middlebury Police Explorers Hold Basketball Fundraiser

photo by Chris LaFoy Fennell “Sweet Magic” Hicks sailing through the air in Police Explorers Basketball Fundraiser.

Tuesday March 28, 2006

By Chris LaFoy

    On Friday, March 24th, the Middlebury Police Explorers All-Stars hosted a fundraiser event at the Middlebury High School gym. The Explorers brought in the nationally known comedy basketball team the Court Jesters. The event drew a large audience, filling the gym to capacity.

The Court Jesters are a group of five basketball players, one referee, and one announcer. The Jesters' style of comedy is similar to the Harlem Globetrotters, performing tricks such as half-court shots while keeping the crowd laughing. The team not only showed an impressive display of athletics, they also got the crowd involved on several occasions. Twice play was stopped to allow anyone who wanted to participate to come onto the gym floor and dance with the team.

Sayeed “Rainbow” Muntaqin is the leader of the show and has been in the business for over 26 years. He has performed in 44 states and 17 countries around the world, he mentioned “I just came home from Kuwait.” Rainbow came through the ranks in basketball playing from his early childhood. After he completed college, his basketball coach suggested the comedy route as a way to be able to play basketball for a living. During the course of the game rainbow wrestled and pinned his opposing players, made a shot while riding a skateboard, and pulled the pants down of a hapless opponent.

Although the show is really about the comedy, the players are extremely talented and had plenty of opportunities to show off their talent. Most of the players have played college basketball and all of them could hold their own with most basketball players around the country. One of the players, Fennell “Sweet Magic” Hicks, will be attending the University of Connecticut on a football scholarship.

All of the proceeds of the event benefit the Middlebury Police Explorers. The Explorers are a group of teens in Middlebury that are involved with the police department. The kids get to do things like respond to and assist with emergency calls and in general explore the occupation of law enforcement.

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