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Hornets Players, 500 Students Tip Off Read to Achieve Program
By: Jim Eichenhofer, Hornets.com October 20, 2009  The questions were coming fast and furious from eager members of the audience, but a calm, cool and collected Chris Paul handled each query with aplomb. Well, at least the easy ones. When a more difficult question was asked, CP3 knew what to do: Hand the microphone to rookie teammate Marcus Thornton. The two-time All-Star point guard joined the first-year NBA player from LSU in helping launch the Hornets’ 2009-10 Read to Achieve program on Tuesday, Oct. 20, at the Louisiana Children’s Museum in New Orleans. During part of their sitdown with children, Paul and Thornton fielded questions from a group of about 100 third-graders. A total of 500 students participated in the event, which was attended by nearly every player on the Hornets’ roster. “Have you ever played for the Lakers?” one child earnestly asked Paul. The Wake Forest product grinned and shook his head, saying “No.” “When you go to score a basket, does the other team try to stop you?” another 8-year-old wondered. Paul laughed and said, “Yeah, they do try to stop me. But that’s why I don’t try to dunk the ball all the time.” “What’s it going to take to win a championship?” a third child wanted to know from CP3. Instead of answering, Paul smiled and quickly said to his teammate seated a few feet away, “Hey Marcus, why don’t you answer that one?” After pausing for a second, Thornton told the youngster, “It’s going to take a lot of hard work, trust in each other and determination to win a championship.” In multiple rooms throughout the Louisiana Children’s Museum, a large contingent including Hornets players, Hornets broadcasters and reporters from New Orleans TV stations read books to the 500 third-graders in attendance. Prior to the reading, the kids were treated to a Buzz Fest-like atmosphere outside the museum. Children practiced their basketball shooting skills, received temporary Hornets tattoos and had their T-shirts autographed by Hugo and the Honeybees. Paul and Thornton closed their Q and A session with the kids by taking one more question from a wide-eyed young girl: “Do you enjoy reading as much as you enjoy playing basketball?” Paul initially opted to also hand that one off to Thornton, telling Thornton to make sure he answered honestly. After Thornton hesitated, Paul decided to step in and help out his new teammate. “OK, I have a good answer for that one,” Paul said, again smiling. “Of course, since this is what we do for a living, we love to play basketball, so obviously we probably don’t enjoy reading as much as we do basketball. But if we hadn’t learned to read and hadn’t done well in school, we wouldn’t have gotten this wonderful opportunity to play basketball for a living. “There is no way you can get to this level of being in the NBA without reading and enjoying to read.”
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