Mining the Mission | A Retired Point Guard Who Continues Dishing Assists
Assuming they haven’t pissed away their fortunes on Cristal and Hummers — a big assumption, I grant you — elite athletes retire with very healthy bank accounts. Some continue amassing wealth through TV gigs, personal appearances, and marketing jobs that embody the word "cushy"; others have nobler pursuits. The former Phoenix Suns star Kevin Johnson, for example, has made a huge impact in Sacramento, where he grew up, launching a nonprofit initiative that turned his troubled former high school into a preschool and elementary school and lured more than a dozen businesses to the neighborhood. Johnson’s next project could happen in the Windy City, reported the Chicago Sun-Times:
Chicago Public School officials are expected to announce today that Johnson’s St. HOPE education group is interested in joining the fifth round of applicants seeking to create new schools under Mayor Daley’s Renaissance 2010 initiative. … Rather than start a new school, [the group’s Dana] Gonzalez said, St. HOPE is leaning toward turning around a struggling one, as it did in 2003 at "Sac High," where 71 percent of 2007 graduates were accepted to four-year colleges, compared with 20 to 30 percent previously. Ultimately, she said, it would like to build a pre-K-through-12 "continuum" in one community.
Funding and visibility are two very important and much-needed commodities for nonprofits. Our country’s burning love of sports, rivaled perhaps only by our sad obsession with celebrity, can provide both, with beloved players having both disposable income and intense wattage to lend to something beyond themselves. I’m not calling on developing officers to abandon their longtime donors and start chasing shortstops; Johnson, after all, may be a rarity, an athlete able to put aside decades of adoration to shine a light on something else. But his commitment should be noted and celebrated. | 501(c)
Tags: Kevin Johnson, St. HOPE, Chicago Public Schools
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Celebrity, Education, Worth a look
0 opinions for Mining the Mission | A Retired Point Guard Who Continues Dishing Assists
No one has left a comment yet. You know what this means, right? You could be first!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: