Not All Bearcats Are Thugs

San Antonio Spurs guard Nick Van Exel came to San Antonio with some baggage, having been suspended for some games in the past resulting from an altercation with an NBA referee.

Now Van Exel is contributing to the team concept on the court in a Spurs uniform, and providing a helping hand to some of San Antonio's less fortunate away from SBC Center.

On Sunday, Van Exel delivered a tractor trailer full of turkeys to the San Antonio Food Bank and other area nonprofits, including the Baptist Children's Home and Antioch Missionary Baptist Church.

Spurs officials say Van Exel came up with the idea on his own and the team worked with San Antonio-based H-E-B Grocery Stores to facilitate the effort.

"This is indicative of the real kind of person Nick is," Spurs spokesman Cliff Puchalski says.
"He's been painted with a bad brush. But he did this on his own. He came to us with the idea because it was something he really wanted to do."

Puchalski says Van Exel purchased 300 of the holiday birds and H-E-B provided the rest.

Area charities like the Food Bank have had their supplies depleted after providing assistance to tens of thousands of evacuees from the Gulf South and parts of the Texas Gulf Coast who found shelter in San Antonio after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit.

Puchalski says Van Exel, who began his collegiate basketball career at Trinity Valley Community College in Texas, said he wanted to find a way to help.