# Panda's Road to the Creator Cup
I thought my serious basketball days were behind me.
Basketball was once one of the defining forces in my life. It took me from college basketball to the ABA, onto international tryout and pro tour circuits, and eventually into years of coaching and skills training. I was even handpicked by professional shooting coach BriAnna Garza to work as a shooting coach at Point Guard College. The game taught me discipline, resilience, leadership, and how quickly people from completely different backgrounds can become family when you put a ball in their hands.
In 2023, much of this came to a crashing halt when I tore my ACL playing and coaching for the Colorado Rise, a fledgling ABA team. I thought I was done and my career was ending right there on that practice court.
But life took me in other directions.
Before my injury and time playing internationally, I served in the military. I became a yoga instructor, meditation teacher, and Reiki Master. I built a career in leadership and coaching. Eventually, music became another way for me to connect with people, and today I'm a Denver-based DJ who has had the opportunity to play around the world.
Through all those chapters, basketball never really left me.
Then the opportunity to play in the TEBA Creator Cup in Thailand appeared.
Something immediately clicked.
This isn't just an opportunity to put on a jersey again. The Creator Cup brings together athletes, creators, and communities around basketball while using the event to give back across Thailand. Each team captain selects a local nonprofit or charitable organization to support, with ticket proceeds going directly toward those causes.
And suddenly, several parts of my life that once seemed completely separate- basketball, travel, creativity, coaching, wellness, and service- had a place to exist together.
That's what this campaign is helping make possible.
Funds raised through my campaign will help support the costs associated with participating in the Creator Cup and making the journey to Thailand possible, while also allowing us to create something bigger around the experience. My goal is to use this opportunity not simply to play basketball, but to connect with people, share the game, create meaningful content, and find ways to give back to the communities welcoming us.
And, yes- I'm training seriously again.
One of my personal goals before Thailand is to rebuild my body into basketball shape and work my way back above the rim. The bigger goal, though, isn't simply to dunk again.
It's to rediscover what happens when I fully invest in becoming the strongest, healthiest, most capable version of myself- and then use that version of myself in service of others.
That's what makes this opportunity so meaningful.
*If you back this campaign, you're not simply helping send me to a basketball game in Thailand.*
You're helping me step back onto the court.
You're helping support a Creator Cup built around giving back through basketball.
You're helping me tell this story and share it with people around the world.
And, perhaps most importantly, you're helping launch what I hope becomes a much larger mission: using basketball, music, movement, and human connection to leave every community I visit a little better than I found it.
I don't know exactly where this new chapter will lead yet.
But I know I'm ready to lace 'em back up.
Let's see where the game takes us. 🐼🏀🌏