Kids school cops on court

link Staff photo: Brittney Cannon

Bayleigh Smith, 6, prepares to shoot a basket against Lt. Roman Romero on Saturday at the fifth annual Cops and Kids basketball game.

Deputy Editor

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It’s not every day that 6-year-olds can have success ganging up on 6-foot-tall police officers and district attorneys.

But that’s what happened Saturday.

For Bayleigh Smith and David Martinez, both 6, it was their first opportunity to play basketball with Clovis Police Lt. Roman Romero and Assistant District Attorney Evan Arendell at the Rock Staubus Gymnasium.

“She really enjoyed it,” Bayleigh’s mother, Dawn Smith, said. Her son, Evan Kovacs, 14, has participated in the annual games the last four years.

“It’s fun to watch, and we spend all day out here,” Dawn Smith said.

Clovis Police Chief Steve Sanders said he brought the idea for a cops and kids basketball game with him from Colorado five years ago as a way to interact with kids in the area.

“We had cops and kids basketball in Colorado, and one of the things we wanted to do was find a way to interact with our youth,” Sanders said. “This was one of the projects I asked (police Sgt.) Daron Roach to put on, so he went out and got some sponsors. The whole idea is to put them in the game.”

Sanders said the first year they had the games, 125 kids signed up to play. Last year, he said, 175 kids participated. About 90 kids participated on Saturday, Sanders said.

The cops’ win-loss record through the years, he said, isn’t too great.

“The kids usually win,” Sanders said, laughing. “We let them play. It’s a lot more of a social interaction than anything else.”

Among Saturday’s highlights: Arendell and Romero boxed in Bayleigh Smith in a tough defensive move, but she dribbled the ball past them and scored a basket.

Romero also aided the kids in some slam dunks by picking them up so they could score.

“I lost miserably,” Romero said after a game. “I got plowed over by a roughly 5 year-old boy. It was great! It’s good stuff.”

Romero said the games open up an opportunity for kids to see that cops and lawyers aren’t always the bad guys, especially when they’re called into their homes during hard times.

“When a person has a problem at their home, that’s when we show up,” Romero said. “We’re not there in the happy times … so all we tend to be looked at as, is this fist, this hammer that comes in and tears apart a family. This is one of those great times we can come out, and they can see us as just fun people.”