Thump, thump, thump!! Your feet slam the ground. In your hand, you are gripping a rubber ball. You jump forward, sending your body downward toward a trampoline.

The synthetic mesh and the steel springs send you flying higher than you expected. Your eyes are set on the orange ring with the white nylon net hanging from it. You raise your arm holding the ball and send it downwards with immense power. Whoosh.

Unlike most students who come to Trinity based on academics, athletics or both, one specific student came for a unique reason.

“I came to Trinity because I wanted to make my own club,” Trinity junior Lawrence Brainer said.

Brainer, also known as Cash, joined the Rock Nation because of his dream to start the Dunk Club. Cash’s passion for the sport started at an early age.

He said, “In fifth or sixth grade, that’s when I first went to Sky Zone and I began to love it. I moved my trampoline in front of my basketball goal at home, and I thought, ‘I’m pretty good at this. This would be fun to do with other people.’”

He soon realized that he had underestimated how hard his dream would be to achieve.  

Brainer started high school very ambitious. During his freshman year, he spoke to Mr. Matt Manning (Trinity’s House System and Director of Activities) about the club, but Manning said he wasn’t sure how much interest there would be in such an activity.

Brainer told himself he was too young as a freshman to pursue the club but would make the a presentation again the next year.

“I went back to Mr. Manning sophomore year,” Brainer said. “He told me again that it probably wouldn’t happen, but I just took the (club) form and decided to try again.”

Brainer took the form for making a club, which is very similar to a petition. “Whenever you make a club there are ‘interested people,’ so I just got as many as signatures as I could.”

He asked student after student. He was very persistent — after all, this was his dream. Junior Theodore Brainer,  Cash’s twin brother, commented on Cash’s ambition: “(He is) pretty focused all the time. If he has his mind on something, he usually gets it done.”

Theo supported his brother through the process. The hardest part for Cash was finding a teacher as the club moderator. Cash was just as persistent with this task, asking many teachers. He had no luck finding a moderator before he spoke to Mr. Joe Bryant (a health and physical education teacher), who said he would not be the moderator but would help find someone for Cash.

Cash said, “So, I brought (the form) back to Mr. Manning and he looked at it. He said since I still didn’t have an official teacher (moderator), that he would tell new teachers in 2016 (about the club).”

Cash’s dream had almost come true, but he would have to wait and be patient until a new teacher wanted to moderate the club. He said, “At the start of 2016, Mr. Manning told (new teacher) Mrs. Karen Flipper (about the club).”

Flipper was interested in moderating a club at Trinity but wasn’t sure what the club involved. “I didn’t know what he was talking about,” she said.  Cash presented his idea and Flipper got on board despite little knowledge of what Sky Zone “dunking” was.

From that day forward, the Dunk Club has become a popular club at Trinity — all thanks to the persistence of Cash. He proved he could create a club at Trinity.

Of the Dunk Club, Flipper said, “The club is very easy; we go to Sky Zone once a month and have a remind app (for meeting reminders). They come in, schedule it, and it has been very simple.”

The club truly is what it sounds like. A bunch of guys come together on a Friday afternoon and dunk for a few hours. They have a ton of fun cheering each other on and challenging each other to do crazier dunks. The members double bounce, they jump over people, and they even try to not even bounce on the trampoline to dunk.

Theo attends every meeting and supports the club. He said, “(I’m) happy about the club. We are thinking of new ideas. It would be very cool to get a bunch of teachers to join. There is an idea for a dunk contest (among the faculty, and if they are not interested), they can just judge.”

Junior Matthew Vanetti said of Cash’s persistence in making the club a reality, “If he wants to do something, he will do whatever it takes. He’s that type of a guy. He strives for success.”