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ONE WORD: A writing project.

ONE WORD started with the 101st shooter in Springfield, MA, at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. We asked each shooter, along with making a basket, to write one word on a blank page of our little black scrapbook.

Shooters could not wait to open the book to see what others had written. We had to ask that they write their own word before peeking as we did not want the other words to influence their own. 150 shooters participated in this project;

here are their words...

...from Springfield, MA, down to Rehoboth Beach, DE, over to Lexington, KY, south to Islamorada, FL, west to Tijuana, Mexico, and north to Calgary, Alberta... No matter the language or location, the messages were funny, ironic, personal and above all, inspiring (and we assure you those seemingly negative words were written in humor). Many wanted to leave us with something profound, but most took a word from the moment. Pride and personality were evident in all...

The One Word Project satisfied our curiosity in what people would chose to leave behind. We honestly expected a lot more would write their names! It was uplifting to find they focused on the positive and were generally thoughtful (although "enigmatic" still puzzles us!)