Carroll College players paint Helena lots to fund summer basketball

Carroll College men’s basketball players are turning parking lots into summer paychecks, using paint, brooms and weed pullers to help cover living expenses while also raising money for the program. The operation, called the Painting Saints, has already completed five projects around Helena and is looking for at least five more, with room for about six beyond that.

Head coach Dan Pearson came up with the restriping idea as a way to keep players working without forcing them into a regular nine-to-five schedule that would clash with workouts, lifts and basketball drills. Instead, the players line up court time around parking-lot jobs, sweep debris, repair cracks, pull weeds and then paint fresh lines and handicap markings. Senior guard Luke Frampton said the setup helps players pay for food and other summer costs while staying in Helena, and it also sends money back into the basketball program.

The work has taken the team into some of the most visible spaces in the city, including the Cathedral of St. Helena. The cathedral’s history reaches back to 1904, when Bishop John P. Carroll set out to build it for the people of Helena. Construction began in 1908, and the first Mass was celebrated in November 1914. Father Marc Lenneman, who directs the cathedral, described the arrangement as a win-win, underscoring how the players’ labor is fitting into the daily life of downtown Helena and Lewis and Clark County.

For Carroll, the project also matches the college’s broader message about student work. The school says student jobs can help defer education costs, improve time-management skills and provide transferable experience, the same kinds of lessons Pearson said the Painting Saints are learning on the job. The men’s basketball program also says it is guided by service to others above self, a value that shows up as visibly in a freshly striped lot as it does on the court.

Frampton, a redshirt sophomore guard from Whitefish and a Frontier Conference Academic All-Conference selection, is part of a roster coming off a 20-10 season and a 17-5 conference mark. For a small-college program in Helena, the painting business is doing more than funding summer basketball. It is showing how Carroll athletics is trying to finance itself, teach job skills and stay embedded in the city’s civic and commercial life at the same time.