Players Take To Social Media To Rip On Rob Manfred
Tennessee basketball has set up an official GoFundMe for Zakai Zeigler’s family after their belongings were lost in a fire at the family’s Queens apartment this weekend.
Here's where to donate, #VolNation.
Thank you for your support and care for the Zeigler Family!https://t.co/JfoSUQ21lg
— Tennessee Basketball (@Vol_Hoops) March 2, 2022
As of the time of the last update — just shy of three hours after Tennessee tweeted the link — $177,180 had been raised for the family.
Zeigler’s mother lived in the home where she helped raise Zeigler’s four-year old special needs nephew. The GoFundMe post said the family is exploring moving to Knoxville to be able to watch Zakai play more frequently and for Zakai to spend more time with his nephew — Nori.
Zakai provided an update on the page, expressing his thanks for the donations and saying “any contributions above and beyond our final losses/expenses will be donated to charity.”
“All I know is that when I saw him on Sunday it looked like he hadn’t been in bed all night,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said following the Vols’ win at Georgia Tuesday. “He actually said he was up until five, six in the morning. Think about it. He loves his family, loves his mom to death, and his dad. They lost it all. I actually asked him, what about you? He said I’ve got all I have here (at Tennessee), coach. But he was obviously just really concerned about his mother and it affected his extended family because it happened so suddenly. But he’s been through a lot, but yet he never shows his emotion.
“Today, he did. I mean, at halftime, it was a very emotional time for him. Not from anything that was said, just the fact that he’s extremely competitive and knows he didn’t play very well. Never looked like he was in sync at all. Honestly, at shootaround today we kept him off his feet pretty much the last couple days. But he was locked in during shootaround. He had a chance to see his mom right before the game and I think the emotion of that overwhelmed him. He wasn’t himself.”
Zeigler has been a key cog in Tennessee’s turnaround in the midst of the season, averaging 9.9 points per game in SEC play after scoring in double-digits just twice in the pre-conference slate.
The under looked freshman’s teammates are trying to lift him up and support him after the tough news.
“It’s really tough for him,” Tennessee forward Josiah-Jordan James said. “I hate it for him and his family because no one deserves to go through that and it’s really tragic. We’ll just try to be there for him as brothers — forget the basketball part of it — we’ve just lent a helping hand. He’s my roommate so I’m with him a lot. Basically 24/7 if we’re not at class. Just trying to keep him distracted, but I know it’s really really on his mind a lot. Just trying to — in any way I can — brighten his day. We do almost everything together day-in and day-out. I don’t know. It’s been really tough.
“He’s handled it really well and it’s great to see his mom was at the game today, and hearing about what the university is able to do to help them has been really good and a bright spot at a really dark time. Just hate it for him. Hate it for his family, but he knows everyone in that locker room — coaches and players included — are there for him.”
Zeigler and the Vols return to the court Saturday for their regular season finale against Arkansas.
