Shortly after moving to Knoxville to join Tennessee's men's basketball team as a transfer, Chaz Lanier found himself at a Walmart with Kaiya Wynn of the women's basketball team.
While the pair leaving with a purchased TV was a spur-of-the-moment decision, the duo reconnecting at Tennessee has been a long time coming.
What originally brought the families together was a team the Wynns founded called Enplay. The goal was to marry the two backgrounds of Kaiya Wynn's parents, Kenyetta (K.K.) and Donald Wynn, in education and athletics.
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Initially, it was just one team that Enplay boasted. While Donald Wynn coached, he met Thomas Lanier in Little Rock, Arkansas. The pair quickly connected with similar backgrounds coming from Alabama and realized they both had second grade sons in Nashville.
Thomas Lanier returned home and told his skeptical wife, Stacey Lanier, about the family he just met. She knew her husband to be outgoing and friendly who meets a lot of people, but she trusted his opinion of the strangers.
From there, another team was born. Chaz Lanier and Dominic Wynn were paired up on the new Enplay team and became best friends in a relationship that has stood past their prep careers.
The organization needed a place to play, though. After searching, they settled on the Tennessee Preparatory School which previously was a boarding school for students with behavioral problems. TPS had a gym that was left vacant but there were hurdles to jump through before it was ready to be used by Enplay.
"It was so cool," K.K. Wynn said. "When you went in, it was really like an old school movie. Wooden bleachers, no breakaway rims."
Donald Wynn, Thomas Lanier and other parents went to work. They installed new rims, they cleaned the floors and they turned it into a suitable home. TPS became a place synonymous with Nashville basketball, as well. Athletes from across the city came to play in games or even just get runs in.
Many nights were spent in that gym for Enplay going forward. Donald Wynn admitted he's embarrassed how late they stayed sometimes but it was where the kids wanted to be.
Enplay continued to grow with a gym to call its own. There were now 'four or five' travel teams that competed with some of the top teams in the country.
Off the floor, K.K. Wynn and Stacey Lanier set up volunteer opportunities for the kids, as well. The goal of Enplay wasn't just basketball, it was also to help the kids grow. The 'E' and 'N' in Enplay stood for 'empower' and 'nurture,' after all.
"That was important for us," Donald Wynn said. "Not only for them to play sports but be productive citizens. To have opportunities to be able to go to museums, see the cultures in different cities and states we were going to. All of those things kind of encapsulated what we were trying to do from a program standpoint."
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While it was boys teams that got Enplay started, Kaiya Wynn was also always in the gym. Despite claiming she hated basketball at a young age, her skillset was quickly apparent when she got on the court.
She was signed up for a league and K.K. Wynn took her to a game while Donald Wynn coached a boys team. At halftime, she called her husband to update how Kaiya Wynn's game was going.
"'Hey, your daughter has like 18 points at halftime,'" Donald Wynn remembers the call going.
After this, the girls team was created. While Kaiya Wynn was used to filling in during the boys' practice, she already had a comfort around the organization.
As she sharpened her skills on the court against the older boys, she also created a bond with the members of the other teams, including Chaz Lanier.
"She became like a little sister to all those guys," K.K. Wynn said. "She was like the little sister. She was always there. They would pick her for their teams. She would get out there and play."
Wynn had to overcome physical disadvantages being a younger girl on the court. This helped her to become a coveted recruit and effective player at Tennessee. There was no looking down on her while she played with the boys, though.
Instead, K.K. Wynn described it as empowering. They didn't see her as a girl but a basketball player.
With Enplay thriving and the Wynn and Lanier families growing closer, they decided they wanted to stay together through high school. When Kaiya Wynn was going into fifth grade and Chaz Lanier was going into sixth grade, the families applied for their kids to attend Ensworth.
All the kids got in and played their prep careers there. It wasn't necessarily smooth sailing for Chaz Lanier, though. He won the eighth grade championship but was still waiting for his growth spurt. He was the shortest kid in the group and was placed on the freshman team instead of JV with Dominic Wynn despite his obvious skillset.
In 10th grade, Dominic Wynn had moved from junior varsity to varsity while Chaz Lanier only moved up to JV. In 11th grade, he still hadn't fully reached his growth spurt. With Chaz Lanier's older brother standing at 6-foot-4 since eighth grade, everyone was waiting for him to grow, as well.
"He hadn't reached puberty yet," Stacey Lanier said. "That was what the concern was. He kept say, 'Mom, they keep asking me am I always gonna be this short or am I gonna grow, are you gonna grow?' I was like, 'Honey, don't worry about it. Just wait for puberty.'"
However, once Chaz Lanier sprouted, he was a force in his senior season. He was named Conference Player of the Year on averages of 23 points, 6.1 rebounds and four assists per game.
While he dominated as a senior, Kaiya Wynn was leading the girls team at Ensworth at the same time. She had been on varsity since eighth grade and now as a junior, she averaged 15.3 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.3 steals per game and was a part of back-to-back DII-AA State Championships.
This resulted in both being nominated for DII-AA Mr. and Miss Basketball in 2020. Neither won, though, as Kaiya Wynn was runner-up for the second-straight season and Chaz Lanier also was in second place.
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The two were separated from there, though. The Wynn family moved to Texas where Kaiya Wynn would complete her final season of high school before returning to Tennessee to play for the Lady Vols after receiving over 30 offers by Division I schools. Chaz Lanier took one of two DI scholarship offers and went to North Florida over Grambling State.
He would play four seasons there where he fully bursted onto the scene in his final year. He averaged 19.7 points per game on 51% shooting from the field and 44% shooting from beyond the arch.
This efficiency dates back to his time at Enplay. With a father who was a great 3-point shooter at Lipscomb, Chaz Lanier came in with a great foundation that was fostered in the TPS gym.
With one season left, he entered the transfer portal. Coaches across the country that Donald Wynn previously connected with were now reaching out to get ahold of one of the top players in the portal.
"It's really nice to have this kind of come full circle and some of these same coaches are calling and saying, 'Hey, can you get Chaz?,'" Donald Wynn said. "I'm like, you remember when I called you and said this kid was going to be really good and because he hadn't fully grown into his body and all that stuff, again, but he was really skilled. It felt really good to talk to some of these coaches and be like hey look, I told you back then when he was coming out of high school he was really special. And now you're calling me about him now, it's kind of come full circle."
Ultimately, the choice was to join Rick Barnes' program at Tennessee coming off an Elite Eight run for the Vols. While Chaz Lanier was weighing his options, Kaiya Wynn was doing her best to recruit him, as well.
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This included plenty of texts and a family FaceTime call to show Chaz Lanier the facilities in Knoxville.
With some help from Kaiya Wynn, and the Lanier family wanting to be closer, Chaz Lanier stayed home.
"Tennessee is home," Stacey Lanier said. "We wanted Chaz to make the best decision. Chaz could've chose anywhere, but Tennessee is home. Just the thought of being able to be back together as a family again superseded a lot of other factors for us."
It took no time for Chaz Lanier and Kaiya Wynn to reunite once he got to campus. Even just on his visit, Kaiya Wynn joined the Vols team at the team table for dinner.
Then, when Chaz Lanier moved in, Kaiya Wynn met the Laniers at the Airbnb and stayed for a few hours. The next day, she helped him move in before the trip to Walmart.
Both are now projected to play big roles on their respective teams. The Vols are looking to earn a spot in their first-ever Final Four while the Lady Vols are changing direction as Kim Caldwell takes over the program.
Its both players' final year of eligibility and one that is a full circle moment for their families.
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