Ray Davenport is Everything Sports at the Cheyenne County Community Center

Ray Davenport is the Sports Director at the Cheyenne County Community Center and is dedicated to providing the Cheyenne County community with a full slate of athletic and physical fitness activities appropriate for ages and interests.

A native of Loveland, CO., and married with three children, Davenport's family moved back to the Sidney area in the early 2000's when his wife secured a job with Cabela's. Davenport currently lives in Peetz, and is centrally located to be able to visit with his relatives that live in Colorado and Oklahoma.

Davenport became familiar with the community center when his kids were participating in sports programs at the center, and he began to get involved with youth sports coaching American Legion baseball. He started as the Sports Director in December of 2021, and started to organize the sports leagues currently existing while searching for new and interesting sports and activities for the community.

Soccer, T-Ball and Little League baseball, volleyball and flag football for the kids are a staple at the Community Center, but Davenport has been trying to open up other activities that had gone dormant due to lack of participants.

“Basically, if you see a sport on TV or in the schools, I want to have it here. I opened up a lot of sports that we had in the past but closed due to lack of participation, but I didn't know that. I'm one of those guys that if it's there, I'm going to see what happens. We tried to open up a fifth and sixth grade 7-on-7 pass only flag football league, and we got about 13 kids who wanted to play, but it wasn't enough kids. But I'm going to try again next year and the year after that until we get it going,” he said.

He opened up Men's Softball, which had been dormant for some time, and was able to get two teams together. Although more teams are needed to form a league, Davenport and Activities Director Tara Gray aggressively use social media and their contacts to get the word out about the Community Center's offerings in hopes to build participation and establish leagues for sports. On of the sporting activities that has drawn a lot of interest, especially among seniors and adults, is Pickleball. Pickleball is a paddle and ball game that combines elements of tennis, badminton and ping-pong that can be played indoors or outdoors. Currently, the Community Center has pick-up Pickleball games during the days, usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but these times are flexible and sometimes change.

For full information on the sports and activities the Community Center has to offer, Ray Davenport can be reached at 308-254-700. The Community Center's website also offers information about sports leagues and sign-up dates and can be accessed at http://www.ccccsidney.com. Finally, The Community Center is very active on Facebook, posting daily about events and sports happening and upcoming activities of interest to the community.

The center is a great resource for sports, especially for kids, and not only gets children out and doing physical activities, but also prepares them for sports as they get older and go to middle and high school. If there's a sport or activity that you would like to see the center offer, give Ray a call and he'll see what he can do about adding it to the roster of sports and activities the center has to offer.