February 6, 2025: Inspiring Sports Stories: Jaylen Brown

[For this year’s Super Bowl series, I wanted to highlight inspiring American sports stories and figures, past and present. Leading up to a special pre-Valentine’s tribute to my two favorite American athletes!]

On two inspiring layers to the most recent NBA Finals MVP.

I wrote briefly about the inspiring stories behind Boston Celtics superstar Jaylen Brown in this Saturday Evening Post Considering History column on the Celtics. In lieu of a full first paragraph here I’d ask you to check out that column if you would, and then come on back for more on what makes Brown such an inspiring sports story.

Welcome back! Brown’s social and political advocacy and activism are without doubt the most inspiring layers to his career and life, far beyond the basketball court, and were nicely traced in this excellent William Rhoden essay for Andscape. It’s not just that he’s so committed to those efforts, but also the language and ideas on which they depend—look at the homepage for his 7uice Foundation, for example, which leads with “A History of Systemic Racism”! I’ve written before in this space about the 2015-2017 Boston Globe Spotlight investigation which revealed that the median net worth for Black families in Boston was $8, a statistic that is as complicated as statistics always are but that nonetheless captures quite definitively the legacies of systemic racism in the city for which Brown plays professional basketball. Brown’s foundation represents a direct and vital response to such histories and realities, and that alone makes him one of our most inspiring contemporary athletes.

But as his excellent Hot Ones interview reminded us, there’s even more to Brown than his combination of athletic and activist achievements. A Berkeley grad who was offered a NASA internship, became the youngest person ever to deliver an invited lecture at Harvard when he did so at the age of 21, and in his role as an MIT Media Lab Fellow co-founded the Bridge Program which mentors Boston high schoolers of color who are interested in STEM, Brown was described by certain scouts as “too smart” for the NBA before he was drafted in 2016. Obviously that perspective is caught up in all kinds of limited and prejudicial mindsets that tell us more about those holding them than they ever could about Brown. But there’s no doubt that he’s a unique professional athlete in any sport, and from any time period, one who exemplifies the best kind of Renaissance person that also can and should inspire all of us to be our most multilayered and best selves.

Last inspiring story tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Inspiring sports stories or figures you’d highlight?