[jwplayer bn1d4NYZ]
With basketball on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, Boston Celtics rookie Grant Williams has started a virtual youth mentoring program with a group of six local teenage boys.
Williams reached out to his agency, BDA Sports Management, to help set up the program. He was eventually connected with MENTOR, an organization that helps provide supportive relationships for youth in the United States. MENTOR has worked with the NBA since 2014 and has helped recruit thousands of mentors through various events.
From there, Williams was introduced to six African American and Hispanic teenagers whom he first met on a virtual call on April 15. As Williams explained to Marc Spears of The Undefeated, he loves the opportunity to mentor younger people and tries to engage with the youth as often as possible.
“I really just loved mentorship as a whole,” Williams said. “I have seen guys around the league doing it. I saw Kemba [Walker] doing it with Big Brothers Big Sisters in Charlotte. When we played in Charlotte, he had 10 to 12 kids in the stands that he had been talking to and had touched their lives growing up. I wanted to do a similar thing, but in Boston and other communities.”
Earlier this year, Williams also teamed up with Becoming A Man, a Massachusetts mentoring program, to create a dialogue on integrity, responsibility, respect for womanhood and other related topics. Williams was honored to help inspire those young African Americans in his community.
Williams said that when he was younger, he looked up to professional athletes and vowed to himself that if he ever got to that level, he would give back as often as possible. Only a rookie, Williams has done that and more in just his first season in the NBA.
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