Bond of former Waccamaw athlete, coach lives on through bike ride

For Melanie Gaines, watching James Brown hop on his bike each summer to raise funds and awareness for the Ashley G. Foundation has only increased in meaning.

Gaines, who lost her daughter Ashley to Cancer in 2008, recognized the bond Brown and Ashley had. It extended beyond the Waccamaw tennis team. And it continues eight years after Ashley’s death.

“He visited Ashley in Charleston when she was there. He came to New York when she was there,” Melanie Gaines said. “He’s just a kind man.”

Brown, the former Warriors tennis coach and a former assistant coach and student at Socastee, will set off from Clemson’s Memorial Stadium on Thursday, beginning a 310-mile bike ride to Surfside Beach. It won’t be his longest trek in the now-five-year series – he returned all the way from California in his second one, headed to Dallas, Texas, for another and biked from New York to Myrtle Beach in 2014.

But even as Brown has moved out of the area, it has become a priority of each of his summers for half a decade.

That is because of Ashley.

She played on Brown’s tennis teams from 2004-2006. Shortly before graduating from Waccamaw in 2007, she was diagnosed with Diffuse Large B-Cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

“I was around her a lot, not just in class, but on and off the court. You’re just with them all the time,” Brown said. “Next thing you know, she’s sick. … The whole time, I’m never thinking ‘this child is not going to make it.’ It stays with me. When that all happened, I needed to do something. I needed to do something to make whatever difference I could make.”

Brown left his spot as the Warriors coach in 2013 after leading the boys and girls tennis teams to eight combined state Class AA championships and nine individual titles. He is currently coaching in New York and New Jersey.

Still, the ride goes on.

His first four trips added approximately $60,000-$70,000 to the foundation’s accounts. Those funds, along with the proceeds for the foundation’s annual golf tournament, are then re-distributed to help families in need of assistance with either treatments or to supplement other needs.

“The people who call us who need the money – one family told us they sold their house – when you are in the hospital you don’t get paid when you can’t work,” Melanie Gaines said.

After adding other riders to the trek for the first time last year, 15 others will join him this time. They’ll take pictures next to Howard’s Rock outside Memorial Stadium Thursday morning and then hit the road.

Brown, now 56, is already working on next year’s schedule and route, and has plans for a significantly longer one again in the near future. His winter workouts consist of hot yoga and a stationary bike until he can get back on the real thing again each spring.

“I’m not going to stop riding. I’ll be riding until the last day I live,” he said. “If I don’t ever stop doing this, I’ll be able to keep doing this. When I’m 60, I’m going to cross America again. I’ve got a lot left.”

Of course, the training allows him to keep his summer tradition - and what it means to him and the Gaines – going strong.

This story was originally published July 20, 2016 at 2:28 PM with the headline "Bond of former Waccamaw athlete, coach lives on through bike ride."