Jenkins, Buck

Executive Director
Buck Jenkins is the Executive Director of the Inner Strength Stars. With an extensive background in athletics as a player, coach, motivator, team builder and mentor, Buck has developed a holistic method for helping youth grow athletically, socially and in life skills. Buck oversees all day-to-day aspects of the operation as well as coaches the 16-year-old team. He spent four years as the program director at Suwanee Sports Academy where he helped develop and market sports based programs that focused on teamwork and teaching its participants about adversity and overcoming obstacles. Buck also organized and managed coaching clinics to help local school, AAU/YBOA and recreation league coaches deal with the many difficulties and barriers involved in helping kids reach their full potential. He also created and supervised youth camps and clinics that incorporated study skills and academic growth into the athletic agenda.

Before becoming the Program Director at the Suwanee Sports Academy, Buck spent two seasons as an Assistant Basketball Coach at his alma mater—Columbia University. While coaching at Columbia Buck was responsible for many areas of team development including: recruiting, new player orientation, guard development, creating the national recruiting database and organizing alumni and career counseling workshops that aimed at helping student-athletes build options for life after college.

After graduating from Columbia University in 1993 with a B.A. in Political Science and as the schools all-time leading scorer, Buck tried out for several NBA teams before heading to Europe for a two year professional basketball career in Portugal. While in Portugal he played for the Imortal Desportivo Clube and was the head coach for the organization’s junior division team. He was also the team representative for league community development and relations.