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Now a bonafide star, for several years, Gay has done other behind-the-scenes work through his independent nonprofit foundation, named the Flight 22 Foundation, with a nod to Gay’s jersey number, 22. If not, I’d be some 6-9 kid who could play basketball a little bit, who’s from Baltimore, but nobody knows about.” “It got me out of me out of my comfort zone, and put me in the right place, in front of the right people. That desire is rooted in his own path, including the type of mentorship his former AAU coach, Anthony Lewis, provided him during what’s only a more confounding recruiting process today, and Gay’s fruitful decision to head to Spalding after two years playing varsity basketball at Eastern as a freshman and sophomore. I’m just trying to create the right place here in Baltimore.” You got to be in the right place at the right time.
“The biggest thing is giving kids the opportunity to be seen that might not necessarily be seen, or might not have the best avenues to do so,” Gay says. Philly’s “Danny Rumph” squad won the title game, 52-47, and Tyrone Williams was the tournament’s MVP.
(Semi-pro tip: take note of Orange Life’s Onias Outlaw and Wayne Blanchard, a pair of rising juniors.) The event brought together teams representing Gay’s alma mater, Archbishop Spalding, his old AAU club team, Cecil Kirk, as well as other groups from Baltimore, Philadelphia, Connecticut, and North Carolina for hours upon hours of games. There’s things like this three-day summertime tournament, designed to provide exposure for high school athletes in front of college scouts.
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The son of Rae, a longtime director of a Head Start program in the city, and father Rudy Sr., a landscaper, Gay is behind a series of public and not-so-public charitable initiatives that reflect his modest personality, as well as his own story. “If you’re in a position to give back to Baltimore, you should,” he says. In fact, just recently, he was in Paris for fashion week (maybe that’s why on Sunday he wore a Dior travel bag over his shoulder in addition to his Flight 22 High School Showcase gray t-shirt).īut Gay hasn’t forgotten his roots. cities and other far-flung parts of the world in his NBA travels. Lauderdale, Florida, and has seen most major U.S. He has a wife and two kids, a house in typically sunny Ft.
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He’s played for four different pro teams averaging 17 points per game, and made the playoffs three times including-after tearing his Achilles’ tendon in January 2017-the last two seasons with the Spurs, regarded as one of the league’s premier franchises. From there, he notably starred at the University of Connecticut, where he was a national player of the year finalist as a sophomore and left school early to become the eighth overall pick in the 2006 NBA Draft. Now 32 years old, Gay is almost two decades removed from his own high school days when he donned a uniform representing Essex’s Eastern Tech and, after a somewhat controversial transfer, Archbishop Spalding in Severn.
“It’s proof that if you do the right things, great things can happen,” Gay said, and that message is really at the heart of why he’s back home today, about to head to the bleachers to watch two teams-one, the Baltimore-based Orange Life club, led by Frederick Douglass High coach Tyree Bizzelle, and the other from Philadelphia- play for a trophy with his name on it.
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(Gay’s been giving him been there, done that advice on how to recover from a torn Achilles’ tendon.) He’s made more than $130 million and is considered a locker-room leader in the wild world of pro sports, even to guys who aren’t his teammates, like his friend Kevin Durant. “Attached at the hip with my agent,” he said, taking yet another look at the device, “seeing what’s going on.”īy nightfall, he’d agree to a new two-year deal to stay with the San Antonio Spurs, worth $32 million, a life-changing amount for most of us, but just another contract for an established name like himself. The iPhone Gay cradled in his right hand illuminated with text-messages. In a gym across the hall, 16 teenage boys were about to play in the championship game of his brainchild, a high school-aged basketball tournament organized through his charitable foundation. With legs outstretched as one with a six-foot-nine body is inclined to prefer, he was here for one thing. And Rudy Gay, the Baltimore native and 13-year pro basketball veteran due for a new contract, sat on a red plastic chair in an air-conditioned classroom on the tony campus of Park School, the century-old private pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade establishment in the suburban Pikesville hills just north of the city line.
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on a hot Sunday afternoon, only about four hours until the official opening of the NBA’s free agency signing period-when players not under contract can decide which team they want to head to next.