January 10, 2008

Most avid NBA fans know that New Orleans guard Chris Paul won the 2005-06 Rookie of the Year award. They also are aware that Miami guard Dwyane Wade was named NBA Finals MVP at the end of the same season, when he led the Heat to their first-ever league championship.

But did you know that when Paul was growing up in Winston-Salem, N.C., his parents made sure their youngest son maintained at least a 3.0 grade-point average in school, or they wouldn’t allow him to play basketball? Did you know that Wade sat out his freshman year at Marquette University due to academic shortcomings, but later transformed himself into an excellent student, with a 3.0 GPA?



Paul and Wade told those childhood stories to youngsters during a Jan. 10 ceremony at the Sylvanie F. Williams Elementary School. The two NBA superstars decided to contribute $5,000 apiece to allow the school to build a new family resource center. The center has already been stocked with computers, educational materials and furniture that will allow children to focus on learning in a comfortable environment.

“This is not about Dwyane and myself. This is about you, the kids,” Paul said of his donation, before stressing the importance of education. “Playing basketball is the easy part of it for us. There are so many guys out there who could play basketball better than us, but the biggest thing that separated us was that we were good people, and the schoolwork we did. School came first (in my family). When we came home, my brother C.J. and I couldn’t play video games during the week. We had to concentrate on schoolwork.”

Said Wade: “This is about our community, our kids and our future. I’m happy and proud to represent New Orleans with Chris. This won’t be the last thing I do here.”

Wade mentioned that he and Paul are planning to conduct several additional community efforts during the February All-Star Weekend in New Orleans. “We both will be in the All-Star Game,” Wade predicted, before grinning and poking fun at his close friend, Paul, who is seeking his first All-Star invite. “Well, I’ve been in the All-Star Game before (but not Paul)…”

Wade also emphasized education to the students who attended the ceremony. “When I went to college, I wasn’t able to play my freshman year due to academic reasons,” he said. “And some of it may have had to do with not taking my academics seriously enough. Once basketball got taken away from me, I realized how important school was. I buckled down and became a 3.0 student at Marquette, to get to where I am today.

“You know,” a smiling Wade concluded to the youngsters, “you can’t sign a contract like Chris Paul’s if you don’t know how to read.”