How it all began…

To be honest, this whole thing started off as a joke.

I was helping the school in a trivia hunt last spring when a student needed help finding the answer for a question asking about the record for running up the Empire State Building. I told him to look at the Guinness Book of World Records. He comes back with the book and points out the picture of the record holder. Right next to the picture of that record was a picture of a guy holding a basketball and it said, “World Record holder for running a marathon while dribbling a basketball: 4 hours 30 minutes 29 seconds.” Another teacher saw it too and jokingly asked, “Can you beat that?” I replied, with, “Easily. Being a running point guard, ambidextrous when it comes to dribbling, and being a distance runner, I can break it.” We left it at that. Later that evening, the teacher came over to have dinner with my roommate and myself. At dinner, she brought up the record and we all joked around about me breaking the record. They dared me to sign up, so I got my laptop and signed up on the website in the middle of dinner. I then printed out the application forms and signed them and mailed them that night. We all thought it was still a joke because we figured they had thousands of record attempt requests, and would not get back to me.

Then, in the middle of summer, as I was traveling in Peru, I checked my email and there was a message from Guinness telling me that I was approved to attempt to break the record. I laughed and kept on with my trip. It was not until my second leg of my travels, while I was in South Africa with a friend that we got to talking about the approval. It was here that it hit me and I made the decision to actually go through with it. Through our talks, I decided that if I was going to put my body through so much pain, I might as well do it for a good cause.

When I arrived home from my vacation, I immediately called my good friend Chris Gaines, who is a personal trainer and strength and conditioning coach for Stanford Rugby, and explained my challenge. I wanted a few tips to help me in my training. When he heard I wanted to do it to raise money for a good cause, he was all in. We worked together and developed a precise and intense workout plan for this record attempt, looking at different components of training. After realizing I could do it, I contacted Christine Solari (director of Stanford College Prep) with an idea to raise money. After making sure I was not joking, we set up a meeting and talked about it further. Little by little, the training and campaign started developing. We picked up more team members for the campaign to help out, and now, we have officially developed “Upward Bounce.”

After we had already established Upward Bounce, I received word that the record was lowered to 3 hours 48 minutes 23 seconds. While making this more of a challenge, I still believe I can break it and we have continued to train hard to prepare even more for this attempt.

Student Costs

The reason I wanted to raise funds for Stanford College Prep is because we want to help students be able to afford the college application process. We tend to be so focused on finances once a student gets to college, that we forget how expensive it is to get to college. I have had too many conversations with students that began with them explaining that they are not applying to college because they cannot afford it. Because of the budget crisis at various university systems, fee and application waivers are disappearing or becoming more scarce. Students are being turned away for financial reasons before they even step foot in their first college class.

Let's imagine this is a typical high school senior who decides in the spring to enroll in a CSU:

4 CSU applications x $55 each = $220
4 UC applications x $60 each = $240
1 Stanford application x $90 = $90
1 Santa Clara University app x $55 = $55
Total cost of apps without fee waivers: $605

1 SAT test = $45
1 ACT test w/writing = $47
SAT II (3 subjects, reg fee @ $20, plus 2 subjects @ $9 ea. plus one language w/listening @ $20) = $58
Total cost of tests w/out fee waivers = $150

1 SAT prep book = $20
1 ACT prep book = $20
1 portable CD player (required for SAT II language w/listening) = $25
Total cost of test supplies = $65

Application fee for freshman year housing @ CSU = $55
Housing deposit @ CSU (which is due with the housing application, long before financial aid is available) = $1400*
Total cost to secure freshman year housing @ CSU = $1,455
*A representative in housing at SFSU said that this initial payment might go up this spring due to the state budget crisis

Total cost of senior year process for this student: $2,275

Students should not be turned away from pursuing their dreams of going to college because they cannot afford the application process. This is why Upward Bounce was created: to help students get to college because we know that once they are there, they will succeed.

Update on Record

Just got a message from Guiness World Records, that reads:

The current record for "Fastest marathon dribbling a basketball" is: The fastest marathon dribbling a basketball is 3 hr 48 min 23 sec and was achieved by Jerry Knox (United States) at the LA marathon.

The attempt was just confirmed and approved and the record was lowered by 42 minutes. We will continue to work and train and attempt to break this new mark.