Florida basketball assistant coach and former player Taurean Green grew up participating in sports camps and attending charity events with his dad, Sidney Green. Now a father himself, the three-time champion wants to give back to a community that’s always supported him.
He brought his mission to the Mark Bostick Golf Course greens Saturday, launching the Taurean Green Foundation’s inaugural charity golf tournament.
The event teed off at 8:30 a.m., with 14 teams competing and sponsors set up along the course. The money raised will also go back to Green’s foundation to further fund free sports camps for the local youth.
“I love to try to pour into the youth just to provide opportunities [and] give them the opportunities that other people are having that they don’t have,” Green said. “I just really [want to] help the community in Gainesville because Gainesville is one of my second homes. I went to school here, and I just love the community.”
The P.K. Yonge volleyball team volunteered at the event, helping set up, decorate, welcome participants and hand out water.
Volleyball coach Chancie Vice got in contact with Green in 2025, when he spoke at the team’s end-of-year banquet. After hearing his foundation’s mission, Vice realized the potential impact of staying involved with the organization on her players.
“When it comes to helping youth through sports and mentorship, it really aligned with the values that we have at P.K. Volleyball,” Vice said. “I think that sports are a tool and a tool to develop them into great human beings as well.”
The team’s work started long before Saturday, playing a key role in securing sponsors. The players gained networking experience, reaching out to businesses in-person and over email.
“It was like a learning lesson that nothing gets handed to you and we had to work for our sponsorships and go out and get them,” Ruby Hampton, a P.K. Yonge volleyball player, said
Hampton enters her second year on the varsity squad, but will play her first season with her older sister Lucy Hampton, who took a year off. Lucy enjoyed riding around on the golf carts with her teammates while checking in on participants throughout the day and appreciated sharing the experience with Ruby.
“The ability to feel empowered by the rest of the community along with my sister is very important to me,” Lucy said. “It really brings a lot of joy and life to the community around us.”
Green appreciated the team’s stewardship and hoped the event allowed them to forge new connections within the community. Some of Green’s players from the Gators participated, including Alex Condon, CJ Ingram, Alex Lloyd and Alex Kovatchev even participated.
“There were a lot of grown ups here playing golf,” Green said. “[It was] a chance to meet different people. A lot of important things in life, it isn’t just what you know it’s who you know.”
Green won three NCAA men’s basketball championships with Florida, earning two as a point guard in 2006 and 2007, and one as an assistant coach in 2025. Drafted 57th overall by the Portland Trail Blazers in 2007, he played one NBA season (2008-09) in Portland and Denver. Before returning to Gainesville in 2022, he spent nine seasons overseas.
He launched his foundation in 2023 with the aim of empowering the youth in his local community. The foundation already has another event in the works, hosting their fourth annual Back-to-School Basketball Camp Aug. 1.
“Our foundation is built off of wanting to provide these types of opportunities for the city of Gainesville,” he said. “Everything is going to go back to the kids.”
