"I love this game!"

You’ve heard it countless times in NBA commercials if you’ve watched a league game on TV anytime in recent seasons. And while the slogan has ample merit, there’s more to this than the high-flying dunks, tight finishes and bigger-than-life personalities in bigger-than-life bodies.

It’s about more than the game.

Ask any of the coaches or players who were in the Charlotte Coliseum on Monday when the Bobcats defeated the Atlanta Hawks, 94-88. The game was open only to middle school students, and their teacher-chaperones, who earned their way into the arena for the Bobcats’ second annual Cool School Field Trip.

A crowd of 15,496, made up primarily of students from 71 public and private elementary schools in North and South Carolina, watched the game with wide eyes, big smiles and enough shrill screams and laughter to flood the building with noise.

"I don’t think the arena has ever been that loud since I’ve been here," said Keith Bogans, in his second season with the Bobcats.

The noise, along with an unusual 10:00 a.m. tip time, created an environment far different than the average NBA preseason game.

"It was extra loud with all the kids in the house," said Bobcats point guard Brevin Knight. "It definitely gave me a boost."

The idea, in this case, was first and foremost to give a boost to the kids who earned their visit. Students who attended the game were required to demonstrate strong academic performance, commendable character and service, write an essay on character development and have no absences, referrals or suspensions after the first week of school in the time prior to the event.

It stirred memories among some players of their responsibilities as role models and memories of their own childhoods - sides of the NBA seldom considered except in times of more highly-publicized negative incidents.

"It’s a positive," Knight said. "You see the reaction that you get from it. There are kids that we go to talk to that people say have been a problem or don’t listen. But then you go and talk to them and they look at you a little bit differently.

"My dad ran boys and girls clubs in New Jersey. I saw the positive effect that it had on kids, changing their outlook to doing something positive instead of being out in the streets. Probably from that point on, I felt like I could be an influence in kids’ lives in a positive way, and that’s what I wanted to do."

Consider the case of Darryl Whitley, today a freshman at Oak Ridge High in Orlando. Three years ago he was a young kid growing up in a single-parent family, living in downtown Orlando near the Magic’s NBA arena.

In a chance meeting, he came face-to-face with Bogans, then a rookie with Orlando, fresh from the University of Kentucky.

"When I was growing up, I didn’t have a chance to come into contact with NBA players, as much as I dreamed about it," Bogans said. "There was no chance to be close to a player.

"So one day when I was playing for Orlando, I came out of the gym and a little kid told me every statistic about me in college. And the way he was talking and the way he just looked up to me, that made me feel good.

"I took him to my house. I met his mother and his brother. And from that point on, every game he wanted to come to, I let him come," Bogans added. "Now when I go to Orlando, I make sure I go pick him up for the game. I keep up with him."

The two talk regularly by telephone. Before coming to Charlotte for training camp this fall, Bogans visited Whitley and attended one of his high school football practices.

"It’s just one of those things where I know what that kid felt like that day to actually get a chance to be close to one of us and not be intimidated," Bogans said. "To know that he had learned everything about me, that just got to me."

It’s about being a role model, when the opportunity comes along. It’s a responsibility that some duck and others accept with satisfaction. The former bring out the cynicism in us all. The latter, in the NBA or elsewhere, are in far greater numbers.

"In some ways, it’s a responsibility," Knight said. "We can’t help every kid. We can’t be expected to feel that every kid we talk to, we’re going to change their life. That has to come from those people who are there every day.

"But we are definitely put in that situation where we are role models. We have to conduct ourselves as best we can and know that the microscope is always on us. Then, when we have a chance to influence someone, you try to do that.”

Raymond Felton, a rookie from North Carolina and Knight’s understudy at point guard, spoke earlier this fall to some of the students who earned their way into Monday’s game.

"Not many kids get a chance to see an NBA game," Felton said. "So it was a big thing to get them to do well in school, have good attendance, do their work and then get a chance to come to the game.

"When I went to talked to them, I told them to keep that up, not just to get a chance to come to a game. Do it because you want to. Do it because it’s the right thing to do. That was my biggest message to them."

Said Bogans: "It’s a responsibility. To those to whom much is given, much is expected. You’ve got an advantage because sometimes a kid will listen to you before he’ll listen to a teacher. So what you do around a kid is very important because they’re going to soak it up like a sponge. They see things you don’t think they see. They see everything."

Darryl Whitley.

The Cool School Field Trip.

It’s about more than the game.

Leonard Laye covered the NBA, ABA and college basketball for more than three decades for the Charlotte Observer and the old Charlotte News until his recent retirement from writing sports fulltime. He will write a weekly column throughout the season for BobcatsBasketball.com.