NBL Hall-of-Famer Cal Bruton is famous for his time spent in basketball as a player and a coach, but not many people know it was a tragic plane accident that led to him coming to Australia.
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After growing up in Queens in New York, Bruton earned a scholarship to play both basketball and baseball at Wichita State University.
But a plane crash that killed 31 people, including 14 Wichita State football players, the baseball program at the school was dropped to put more money into football.
This forced Bruton to focus his training on basketball and the rest is history. A stellar career in the NBL gave Bruton a public identity which he has used to run sports clinics for children for more than 30 years.
Bruton has been working with former Canberra Cavalry pitcher Brian Grening's organisation Diverse Baseball Canberra to deliver clinics for children with diverse backgrounds.
"Diversity is the key word. We had some disabled kids here, we had some intellectually handicapped kids, we had some multicultural kids and that to me is what makes the world go around," Bruton said.
"You don't have to be tall, you don't have to worry about being short, you can be heavy, you can be small, it doesn't matter.
"I think for this sort of clinic it brings in all shapes, sizes, skill-sets, it doesn't matter. If a kid can learn to catch and throw they're in for a real red hot go."
Since retiring from the Cavalry at the start of 2018, Grening has been looking for a way to give back to the community that gave him so much.
The Claxton Shield-winning pitcher played for the Cavalry for seven seasons, highlighted by a championship in 2012-13 and an Asia Series win in the same year.
"This is my way to say thank you for all the years. I literally walked in here and it was like 'you're one of us', and that was really cool, so I wanted everyone to feel like I'm giving that back," Grening said.
"When you don't have a jersey to put on it's hard to give back.
"As bad as it sounds you can't walk into a hospital or a school so I thought if I started an organisation, I can continue to give back which is something I really enjoyed as a player.
"So I started Diverse Baseball Canberra to reach out to people that don't always get picked for sports and give them a chance to play."
Grening hopes the clinics will grow as more people hear about them.
"This is going to be annual, but we'd also like to do two or three over the winter and then another two or three over the summer."
