For Gersson Rosas, it’s more than being the Timberwolves President of Basketball Operations.
While that’s certainly a job title literally millions of people would love to have, when Rosas was hired by the Timberwolves last summer, he was the first-ever Latino to hold such a title.
Rosas has done his part to give back to make sure he’s not the last.
On March 4 when Timberwolves hosted the Bulls at Target Center, the Timberwolves hosted a Noches ENE-BE-A night.
It’s a night and program that seeks to commemorate NBA fans and players across Latin American and U.S. Hispanic communities.
Prior to the game, Rosas hosted a “chalk-talk” with 150-plus people from Hispanic and Latinx serving organizations hosted in the theater at the team's offices.
Rosas told his story. How he grew up in Bogotá, Colombia and moved to Houston when he was 3-years-old. It wasn’t long before Rosas knew what he wanted to do.
When Rosas was eight years old, he was reading newspapers and watching SportsCenter. When he was 11, he knew he wanted to be a GM of an NBA team.
Talk about having goals.
Rosas talked about his journey to where he is now. We did a lengthier piece on that here.
His message, though, was less about him and more about the people that he represented.
“We’re divided by nationalities when we are the same in a lot of ways,” Rosas said. “We lose power by not coming together.”
Rosas was honored at halftime with the video below.
After the game, Karl-Anthony Towns – whose mother is a native of the Dominican Republic, and Juancho Hernangomez – who was born in Madrid, Spain, talked to that same group.
While the events for the particular night came to an end, the goal is that the conversations do not.