Kelenna Azubuike | Golden State Warriors | Career Transition Within the NBA

In this episode of The Sports Umbrella presented by GalwayPlus, host Kelly Okun interviews Kelenna Azubuike, an NBA-player-turned-color-commentator for the Golden State Warriors. 

Kelenna shares how he felt like he lost his identity when he was injured while playing for the Golden State Warriors and how the NBPA program, Broadcaster U, at Syracuse helped him fall back in love with the game as a TV analyst. 

His story is also one rooted in faith, which can be seen in how he gives back off the court with his nonprofit, The Athletes' Corner. His campaign - "Swishes for Dishes" - with the Warriors has raised over half a million meals for Feeding America. 

The episode closes with a story about his wife, Rona, and how they experimented with unique cornbread flavor combinations and decided to start “Kelenna’s Famous Cornbread."

The Sports Umbrella is a Fairway to Green podcast sponsored by GalwayPlus. Learn more about GalwayPlus at www.galwayplus.com.

Transcript

Meet Kelenna Azubuike: From NBA Star to Color Commentator

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the sports umbrella, where we cover all aspects of sports, soak in all the knowledge from our guests who range from pro athletes playing up the storm to industry experts making it rain. My name is Kelly Oaken, and I'm a former pro-golfer and founder and CEO of Fairway to Green, an equitable sports media company. Joining us this episode, presented by Galway Plus, is Kalena Azabuki, a former NBA player and current color commentator for the Golden State Warriors. Kalena shares how he transitioned from his playing career into sports broadcasting, how his faith helps him give back to his community, and of course his wife Rona's cornbread. Kalena, thank you for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Can we just take a moment to appreciate where sports have brought you? I mean what a journey it's been. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

A Broadcaster's Mindset on the Court

SPEAKER_01 0:48

It's been a blessing. I I can't lie. Well, first of all, being here in Cabo is great. Sports have brought me here. But the broadcasting, getting to play in the NBA for as long as I did was a blessing. You never take that for granted. Any amount of time in the NBA, you can't take that for granted. And then the color commentating for the Warriors has been a joy. It doesn't feel like work. I always tell people that ask about it, how is it? Working with Bob Fitzgerald has been great. It just doesn't feel like work. It feels like something I enjoy. There's almost good challenges with it when it comes to making sure you're prepared and you know all the players and the tendencies and everything you want to know before going into games. And then it's just like I used to do before I was on camera, which was watch games with my brothers or friends. We would talk the same way. We would break down stuff. I've always enjoyed breaking down film, trying to figure out why things are happening. And it's kind of the way I watched film when I was a player as well. Just trying to figure out okay, how can I take advantage of this defense? What are they doing to me? How are they defending? Where are the holes? Where are the gaps? Where are the strengths in my game that I can use against them in what ways? And it's kind of the same thing when it comes to just the broadcasting piece, just trying to figure out what team's tendencies are, what style of play is the best for them to bring out the strengths in all these players, their personnel, what's the best way for them to go about it? So it's just fun. And then we just crack jokes and have a good time on the broadcast, which has been fun. But yeah, the basketball life is been a good one for me. I would have loved to play in the NBA longer. I tore my Patella tendon. We can get into that. That was a whole ordeal, a whole debacle there. So my playing career ended quicker than I wanted it to. But then just being able to pivot and go into broadcasting pretty soon after and having some success or just some longevity or some consistency with that has been really cool. So I can't take it for granted for sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yeah, and broadcasting sounds like it was a natural fit just based on how you're analyzing from the playing side. Did you always know you wanted to go into that as your next chapter?

Broadcaster U Breakthrough

SPEAKER_01 3:06

I would play and I would watch sports shows and sports talk shows and feel like I could probably do that. That's something I could maybe do. It seems like it would be fun to do. And obviously, a lot of athletes and players, since they do interviews their whole lives, they're always like, well, it's probably easy to just transition over to just talking about sports. But being interviewed and then initiating a conversation, figuring out things, coming up with things to break down on your own, reacting to a play that happened, it is a little different. And so I think that was one thing I probably knew going in and realized even more as I got into it. The more you get reps, the more you're able to do games and get comfortable being on camera. Because when I first started, I was doing pre and post-game for the Warriors and then a bunch of other stuff. NBA Summer League. I was doing NBA G League games, I was doing WCC games color. But when I first started doing pre and post-game in the studio, I was talking so fast. I'd be like, I didn't even realize it when I was doing it in the moment. And then I'd watch myself back and I was just like going crazy on camera at times, and it felt like, why am I just why am I talking so fast? I have so much to say, there's so much going into my mind, and you want to get it in all in this, you know, short cement. And so at times I just had to figure out, okay, I gotta slow down, make it feel like in my own head that I'm talking really slow on camera, and that'll look more natural. So just little things like that you just kind of figure out along the way, but it's all so much fun because I'm really competitive with myself, and the way I got into broadcasting was we went to this three-day boot camp thing that the NBA Play Association put on called Broadcaster U. And it was at Syracuse, which Syracuse is known for having a wonderful broadcasting program, and there's a lot of legends that have come from Syracuse, and they have a nice setup there. So they I think the first year I went was the first year that they actually had the program, and it was me and seven or eight other former NBA players, and they just kind of put us through the gauntlet, but in a really cool way to where it's not like we're falling asleep because I'm not narcoleptic, but I might be like borderline narcoleptic. So if you keep me in there for a 30-minute, 40-minute speech and it's not hands-on and it's not really interactive, and it's kind of long and drawn out, I may start to lose some interest, maybe not off a little bit. And I I can I feel like maybe I've gotten good at looking like I'm not asleep when I really am. Like going through college, you kind of figure that, especially in the big auditoriums and you're up high, you figure out where to sit and everything. But that's besides the point. But I was able to go through that. So they did it to where it's like these five quick five-minute discussions they would have where they just give you different tips about the broadcasting and what they're what you should be looking to do, how to get comfortable on camera, some of your body language, how loud you are, how fast, all these different things, and then they just put you on camera, and then it just back and forth. So it was almost like you're just getting better on the fly in a pretty short amount of time, in three days, and you're able to kind of watch yourself and go, okay, that didn't look right. That's not natural. I don't like the way I said that. It kind of came out wrong. I could put this a little different, I could be more succinct, I could be a little more drawn out here, expand here. So all those different things in those three days with broadcaster you, and they let us do studio, they let us do simulated color commentating, they let us do radio. So you kind of saw yourself in all those different mediums or spaces or whatever you want to call them. And I just kind of fell in love with it because that was at a time where I was, I don't even know if I want to be involved with basketball anymore. I just tore my patellating, which there's the injury again, and my career ended before I wanted to. I was still kind of mad at the game or about that, and just didn't want, I felt like I was still supposed to be playing, so I didn't want to watch basketball. But then after I went back to school, I actually went back and got my degree in 2015. Debbie Merman, who's with the Players Association at the time, she hit me up. She had said, Hey, I you had said something to me about maybe going into broadcasting a few years back. We're having this program. Do you want to come out? So I was like, all right, I'll give it a try. And through that process, just kind of fell back in love with basketball, watching with the guys, watching with the former NBA players, going back and forth with them. It all kind of came rushing back, and then seeing the behind the scenes because they let us look at the guts of it. You could see what's going on in the truck, the controls, the guys behind the scenes, what's going on behind the camera, the setup, and all that stuff, the guys talking in your ear, and I just kind of fell in love with the whole process. So I was like, I could do this. So that's kind of when I jumped back into the basketball mindset and trying to figure out okay, how do I start this broadcasting career? And that's kind of where it was for me. Then I called Jim Barnett, who was a colored commentator at the time for the Warriors, and we were good friends because he called games when I was playing for the Warriors, and it's wild. The first thing he said to me, because we were good friends, he would come while I was in practice, getting shots up afterwards, and we'd have discussions, and he'd talk about the game and some of the stuff he's seen, better ways to finish through contact and all these different things. He was always offering his opinion, and it was definitely welcome because he was so had such a great mind for the game, and he had been doing the color commentating for a long time for the Warriors. I think he got over 30 years in. And so we had developed a good relationship. So he was the first wish when I called when I was trying to get into broadcasting. I was just like, hey, this is your domain. I'm thinking about starting a broadcasting career. Give me some advice, give me some tips. What do you think? I don't even know where to begin. And the first thing he says to me was, you know what? I think you should take my job. Before he said anything else about tips or anything like that, I was like, he was like, I really think you should take my job. I was like, what are you talking about? I don't even know what I'm gonna do yet. I don't know if I'm gonna be doing studio, pre- and post-game, color commentating. I'm just trying to figure out where to start with this thing. He said, No, you speak well, you'd be really good at it. I think I feel like you should be color commentating for the wars. I feel like you'd be really good at this job. So I was just like, alright, whatever. And he kind of gave me some tips. We had a good long conversation, and that was it, and he got the ball rolling. He hit up Devin Fox, who was one of the boss producers at the time at NBC Sports Bay Area, which is the network that the Warriors work with. And I did pre- and post-game for five, six years. Then Rick Welts, who was the Warriors president at the time, he hit me up. He's like, Hey, I want you to switch over to color and do color commentating during the games for the Warriors. And I was like, Alright, let's do it. So it's just kind of been like wherever God has taken it, to just kind of leave it up to him and have fun with it, be prepared, be on time, be ready to go. And again, when I was doing pre and post, it didn't feel like work. Doing color commentating for the Warriors, even better. Being able to react in real time, Stephen Curry, uh, Clay Thompson for a while, not anymore. I think Klay Thompson's here, I gotta say what's up to him. And Draymond Green and Jordan Poole for a little bit there, all these amazing players being able to react to their brilliance in real time. It's fantastic.

An Athlete's Identity After Injury

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Thank you for sharing that. I think Galway Plus is the proud sponsor of the sports umbrella. Galway Plus Sports and Entertainment is the first of its kind platform in the wealth and risk management sectors designed to cater to the diverse needs of affluent individuals, teams, leagues, and organizations operating within the sports and entertainment industries. Learn more at GalwayPlus.com. I want to rewind a little bit to the injury, because an injury also took me out of my professional sport form. I thought I was ready. I wouldn't hear about that, too. Yeah, there's an identity crisis there because your whole life you've been working towards that level. I didn't want to work in sports either at the beginning. I was like, it's too painful to watch. I don't know if I can do it. I know you said you had a mentor sort of walk you through it, but did you have a perspective change that made it okay for you to go back into it?

Faith, Family and a Reset

SPEAKER_01 11:38

For me, the people around me really helped. My family was always wonderful when it comes to perspective, keeping a great attitude of gratitude no matter what happens, and my faith in Jesus Christ. That's you said it's an identity thing, right? Most athletes only look at themselves or mostly look at themselves as athletes or whatever sport they're in, basketball players, NFL players, whatever it is. And it's understandable. You spend your whole life working towards this thing, playing this game, and you finally get to the pinnacle, and everybody sees you as this athlete that has this huge platform and this huge voice, and it consumes your life. And it's hard to see yourself as anything else. But early on, my parents introduced me to Jesus, and I developed my relationship with him, got in the Bible as much as I could, just reading it for myself, trying to figure out the ways of God. What's the heart of God? How can I get closer to God? And that was huge for me in those moments because I don't know what I would have done without my fate and then my brothers, my family, when I tore my patella tendon, because that was probably the lowest moment for me. My dad was still alive at that time, he died soon after. That that was pretty low, too. But just sitting there on the ground, because I when I tore my patella tendon, my kneecap ended up like up here on my quad. And seeing that, you see your career life flash before your eyes, and you're going, is this the last time I'm ever gonna be able to play this game? Am I gonna be the same when I got back? Which was the right thought because I wasn't the same when I got back. I was never able to get back to 100%, not even close. And so during rehab and the botched first surgery, so the first surgery was botched because this doctor he just sewed up my tendon and didn't add a cadaver or anything to stabilize it or to strengthen it while it's healing. So there's all this stress on my patella tendon while it's trying to heal and no support. So as it was while I'm rehab and doing all this stuff and trying to get the muscle strong around it, the patella tendon just kind of continually stretched back out. So my kneecap ended up back in my quad to where if your your kneecap is right here and this is your leg, when your leg bends, the kneecap should go with it, right? My my kneecap would just stay up here and my leg would bend like that. And it was so painful. So I had to have surgery again, and this time, James Andrews, who's the doctor that the surgeon that did the second one, he tied a wire around the top of my kneecap and drilled a hole in my femur and put the wire through there to pull my kneecap back down as far as he could. He couldn't get it down all the way, but he pulled it down, tied the wire around it, and drilled the hole in my femur, and put the wire through there, and sewed it up. So that was the stability, the help for my patella tendon while it was healing the second time. And then while I'm rehabbing, that wire broke, and it was this loud crack sound while I'm rehabbing in the whole like this rehab setup, which was like from here to there, it's almost like as big as this room we're in. Everybody could hear it, and everybody was like, What just happened? Because this was like during my range of motion knee bend movements and everything, and the therapist jumped and everybody went crazy. What's happening? Do we need to have emergency surgery? But it wasn't as bad as people thought it was, but it still was bad because that meant my kneecap was still too high up, so much so that it was pulling this wire that shouldn't have been able to break. This is uh I guess I don't know, I don't think it's steel, but whatever the that, like almost like the the material from fence or something like that. It's not supposed to be able to break anyway, it broke. So that was a debacle, so I had to have emergency surgery right after that, get the wire taken out, tried to come back and play after that because the patella tendon had healed enough, but it still had kind of stretched out, obviously, if the wire broke. So then I actually got to a point where I could look good enough for a 30-minute workout for a team to come in there, look at me, go, he might be back, he might be back. So the Mavericks, I'm working out in Denver at the time after this long rehab process, and the Mavericks come in. Rick Carla, I just saw, because I was I did ESPN radio for his Pacers Cavaliers game three, I believe it was, in Indiana. Yeah, so I just saw him and we were laughing and reminiscing. It was so good to see him. He's he's an amazing coach, and good luck to him in the finals, by the way. He's well-deserved Eastern Conference champions, a fun team to watch. But so he came to the Denver gym I was working out in and basically put me through a workout to see if I'm back, to see if they want to sign me. And I crushed this workout. So I took some pain pills, not hard pain pills, but like some over-the-counter pain pills, maybe a little more than over the count over-the-counter, not like tortall type stuff, but pain pills enough to get me through a workout where I was feeling good enough. Like my knees were kind of they weren't hurting before that, but they were worse off before the pain pills. I took the pain pills in time enough before the workout to where I was feeling really good during the workout. And I'm flying around dunking. I hit 24 out of 25 threes. They put me through these sprints, and I'm doing all the sprints and like almost record time for them, and I'm running around. So Rick Carlisle and his guys were like, he's back, he's back. That's signed. They signed me the day after for two years, guaranteed, and that was a blessing. And I felt like I could get through a season, maybe at least, and then have the summer to recover and then get through another season, just play as long as I can. But that first year with the Mavs, it just started to deteriorate, and you could tell it couldn't handle the stress of an 82-game season and all that in training camp and all that comes with that, and the sprints and the hardcore, the back and forth. And the Mavs quickly saw that too, and saw the writing on the wall. So they traded me to the Cavaliers, and the Cavaliers, it wasn't too long until they saw the writing on the wall, too, as my knees just started getting worse and worse. And my right one was hurting too. Because after I tore my left patelaton, the doctors went in and looked at my right one, and they're like, Oh, that's halfway torn, too. Both of your knees suck. And so I had to get that one fixed as well. And I had numerous little procedures here and there, injections, all kinds of stuff to keep to try to get my knees good enough to play in NBA games. Because you gotta have really solid bone structure, knee structure to run on hard court for a long NBA career. Hard court is a little stressful. And as it was, I learned this later. I was born with patella alta, which is unusually high kneecaps. My mom had that and gave that to me, and not really sure there's too much you can do to prevent injuries like that happening. If you have patella alto, you could try to push your kneecap down, but once your kneecap is kind of set in a position, it's hard to get it to really move down and take that stress off of it. Anyway, so that that was my injury history. So after the calves, I was pretty much done. Knew it wasn't gonna work out. Tried another stint where I'm working out for the spurs, and it started bothering me again. So it was over after that. And so after that, I was pretty upset. I was pretty upset. I knew I still had so much to give to the game if I had healthy knees, healthy legs, and my time playing, I knew it was at an end. So I was trying to figure out what to do. I'm watching all these guys, knowing man, I should have been there. My career was kind of on the rise. I think my last healthy year, I averaged like a little over 14 points, shooting over 40% from three-point range. I was improving every single year. I was kind of one of the guys they're saying that's gonna keep going and keep getting better and better. So I had a really promising career ahead of me, and I couldn't go forward because of these annoying knees. So I was having a tough time getting over that. And again, my parents and my brothers, my brothers are my accountability partners when it comes to praying, when it comes to just talking about life, trying to figure out, navigate through different circumstances, difficult circumstances. They're my sounding block, they're the guys I call, and I got really close friends that I can pray with too that are also my accountability partners. Those guys helped me stay positive and got me through that as well as my parents and prayer and my faith again. And so that was that time, and eventually I was able to pick myself back up. I had some other stuff going on off the courts and real estate and everything, got that to a place where it can kind of take care of itself. Then I went back to school because I had left early to play basketball, went back to Kentucky, finished my degree. That was an interesting ordeal because I thought I was gonna go back after 10 years and need like tutors and not know what's going on and really struggle with getting back into the swing of college, being 10 years removed. And actually, you figure out that you're kind of street smart when you go back. Life just kind of teaches you things along the way, and you're able to kind of problem solve a little easier than some of these kids that are just fresh out of high school and just young and haven't experienced things yet. So I I went back and got all A's and made the dean's list and was helping other kids like in classes, and it was really fun, actually. It was cool to see. I'm sure they love that too. Yeah, it was cool, cool, yeah. And so after that's when I went to broadcast. For you and the broadcasting thing was able to kick off. But yeah, it's like you said, it's the identity piece is really tough when you have something that you work so hard for ripped away from you, just like that. And that's what can happen with injuries with these athletes. And sometimes you can go into depression. Some of these athletes have done that. You can really struggle when it's taken away from you. Not even sometimes early. Some guys just retire and they struggle. Men and women can retire after a long career and do everything they want to do in their sport and retire and just kind of have an identity crisis and trying to figure out what they're gonna do next. What is life gonna be like without this thing that they've worked so hard for? But what was your experience like with that and injuries and everything?

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Oh gosh. The injury that ultimately took me out was a concussion, which is surprising for golf, but I just had it wasn't by a golf ball or a golf cart or anything like that. No alcohol was involved. No. It was just it messed with my eye tracking movement, and so I got really nauseous trying to read greens or track the flight of the ball, and I just it took uh almost a year for me to recover from that.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

What was a concussion from?

SPEAKER_00 23:08

What I had a bad one in college, also not related to golf or alcohol, but it because I had one, I went on a roller coaster and it just shook too much, and I guess my skull rattled and my brain. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

So you had a concussion while I'm on the roller coaster too, just after the case of going on the roller coaster.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Yeah, which is a really weird way to get out of a sport you've worked here holding.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

What roller coasters? I've never heard that.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

I think they're finally shutting it down into universal. I I heard that it's finally going away.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Have other people had issues with that roller coaster too?

SPEAKER_00 23:39

I tried bringing it up as a safety issue because they were like, oh, if you have back problems, don't go on here if you're pregnant. But the signage never said if you have a concussion, because that never crossed my mind because it was years later.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yeah. Can you like sue that the universals or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 23:53

I didn't make enough money as a golfer to be able to have any sort of right to do that. Interesting. It was a weird process, but I tried just to more so for the awareness aspects, so other people like me wouldn't end up hurt, but for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

I know. But I had some kneecap issues too going into college, and I had a lateral release before that surgery got outdated. So I'm waiting to see if I need to do it on the other knee at some point, too.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Was that like just wear and tear from like the rotation swinging and all that stuff?

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Yeah, I had torn my meniscus the day after I graduated high school and I played on it for a year because I didn't want to lose out on playing in college.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Yeah, then when they did the surgery and they were like, oh, by the way, I need to do this too.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

So all through when you were playing in college, you were feeling it, and it was just like a Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

I don't know if Camilla Vajagas, when he would he was on the PGA tour and he would lie on the green and look kind of like Spider-Man to read the greens. That's what I looked like because I couldn't bend my knee to spot down. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

When I when I read the greens now, I just I don't even get like halfway down. I'm just gonna I look weird. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Yeah, but it worked out. Now that I stopped playing, my body doesn't hurt as much. I don't know about you.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah, yeah. Well, same. I mean, at times you feel especially holder weather, my knees can struggle a little bit, but I've gotten kind of used to where it's at, not painful, but just the level it's at where I can continue to do low impact stuff, especially in the gym, like elliptical, bike. I love Peloton, it's one thing I love to do. So yeah, just low impact stuff. But yeah, no nothing crazy.

Knowing When to Close a Chapter

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Yeah, no more running. I don't know. No, no high jumps or box jumps or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

When I got done, I and I was thinking about maybe trying to get back. I started trying to play pickup with on hardcore again, like regular basketball, and I was having to ice for like hours afterwards and game ready. You ever that game ready that the compression thing? And I was using that all the time, and I was having to get injections. I was like, what am I doing? This isn't going anywhere. I'm not gonna end up back in the league, being like looking like this and struggling after one pickup game. How am I gonna play 82 games? So, yeah, that's kind of when I hung it up. That's really interesting. I never heard about the yeah, it's uh or someone getting struggling with a roller coaster when it comes to concussions and stuff like that. That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Yeah, it's uh it's unique, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

But we found our way back.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

So after that happened, after you realized golf was done, what was the transition process like for you? Just trying to figure out what else you're gonna do, that starting this podcast, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Yeah, I fell back on my education, honestly. I'd worked in the golf industry as a marketing intern in high school and college and absolutely loved it. And I was a history major at school and then realized if I wanted a job, I should also study marketing. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Yeah, I was marketing too, actually. Yeah, business marketing in college.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

It's it's a great place to go. I feel like a lot of athletes go into the business school and it just all makes sense, honestly. It's a lot of similar skill sets. And when I was playing, I knew I wasn't going to be on a cosworn stem or anything like that. So I was doing freelance writing, building my resume already, doing marketing consulting for small businesses. And so I knew the transition would be interesting, but I wasn't looking at sports quite yet because I was still feeling a little weird about it.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Yeah, there's that bitterness right after you're done. I should still be doing it with just injuries, it's still dumb. But yeah, I know I hear you on that for sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Yeah, and I mean it's been my whole life to this point. I was like, I'm sure there's other stuff out there. Right, right. So I looked at some, but I eventually found a golf marketing agency based in DC, which is where I wanted to be. And I am so grateful I took that job because not only did I learn a lot on the marketing side, but because I was in golf and had been so in golf, I was able to just rise so much faster than I thought I could. And because I felt at that point I was five years behind my college friends. I hadn't been building a career at that point from that angle. But golf, just knowing it so well, was just a really great way to take advantage of climbing the ladder faster.

Athlete Grit in Business

SPEAKER_01 27:51

That's really cool. I think one advantage we have as athletes, when we're playing, we know how to apply ourselves and work super hard for a goal to achieve something. And so, whatever it is after our sport, when the sport is taken away, we can throw ourselves into something else the same way, work super hard, maybe harder than other people are used to working to get something to get good at something else. And so that's one thing I found. Like I enjoy the work, I enjoy trying to do more than other people, be more prepared than everybody else, and all of that stuff. Just like I enjoyed it when I was playing, just to because that's what you're used to. Used to have I I had to go to the G League before I was able to play in the NBA. It had to grind from there. So I'm just kind of used to that grind, used to having that chip on my shoulder, used to getting to the high level, but looking for more, working harder to see if you can take the next step and take the next step and never being satisfied. So I think that's that is something if the athletes embrace that, embrace whatever their next career is the same way, they do have that advantage of understanding what real work looks like with athletes, with players. It's like working yourself to exhaustion just to achieve what you're trying to achieve or get better or work on your craft or get more consistent or whatever it is you're working on. And I don't think that's something that everybody's used to, the way athletes know how to do it, especially if you can make it to the top of your world, whatever sport it is you're playing. Like you've had to work. But there's not a lot of guys that just make it there on just talent. There's guys few and far between, those guys that are ultra-talented, way more talented than everybody else, and they can kind of ride their talent, maybe more than other people, but most guys have had to work crazy hard to get there. So I love that aspect of it.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

I do too. Yeah, when I've talked to companies, everyone's athletes have grit. That's the difference. I mean, there's more differences, but it's like they have grit, they're not going to shy away from problems or challenges. They're gonna power through and problem solve and figure it out. And I think that's why so many athletes become entrepreneurs as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Right? Seriously.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

They're already used to managing their own careers, playing careers like it's a business already.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah, and that there's this mental toughness that you get from going through what you've been through, dealing with all kinds of different personalities. I mean, think about being in an NBA locker room and all the different personalities that you have to figure out how to work with and how to use your strengths to make them better, and vice versa. And that's something that is so valuable down the line, just realizing that you don't have to get flustered with everything that has potential to blow up. You don't have to let it. You can figure out some type of common ground, you can talk to people because with NBA locker rooms, there's some hard players-only meetings that need to be had where things need to be put on the table, there's confrontations that have to happen that are uncomfortable, you have to talk to guys, you have to work together, you're gonna get upset with people, there's gonna be fights, there's gonna be this and that, all in the locker room. And those are things that if you can figure out how to navigate that and manage that, man, that's a life skill that you've had to drink from a fire hose and kind of learn on the fly, especially when you're just thrown in there as a rookie, and you have no clue what's going on, and all this stuff is coming at you. An NBA locker room, especially a volatile one, a non-winning NBA locker room where the everything's kind of annoying to everybody now because you're just taking L's, like that is not an easy place to be in that flow state and find success and while using teamwork and trying to figure out how to shine yourself and stick out and have your own success. It's not an easy place to figure all that out. But if you do and if you're able to come through that and take away some skill from that, take away some life lessons from that, you definitely could use that in whatever it is you go into next. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

It's a whole separate education. I never thought I had to go back to school after that, and then I did. But never thought I was gonna do that.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Yeah, seriously, right? No, that's awesome. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

And you've mentioned faith and family quite a bit. How have those core values really inspired you to give back?

Giving Back: The Athletes' Corner

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Well, that's I feel like one of the things my parents instilled in in us growing up was we're blessed to be a blessing. You're always looking to give, looking to help people. What's your ministry? Where can you have an impact on others? How can you help others? And if you end up having some type of platform, how do you use that for good? And so that was always something I felt like I wanted to do throughout my playing career, after my playing career, was find a way to give back, figure out what my ministry was going to be. You always have that ministry itch that you want to scratch, and you learn that you get blessed from it when you're helping other people out, whatever way it is, when you're giving to others, you get blessed in return, even more, just from seeing them thrive, seeing what you've done for them and how they're benefiting from it, seeing a smile on a kid's face after you've given them something or a gift or whatever, a Christmas present when they haven't had a Christmas in years or whatever it is. And it's that old saying, it's more blessed to give than it is to receive. And you find that out when you're doing all you can to give back. So for me right now, it's the Athletes Corner, which is really scratched that ministry itch for me. My co-founder Brennan Creer and I launched basically in 2020 during the pandemic when it was pretty much in the middle of it, and we were just trying to figure out what's a tangible way we can give back and help people. And uh food insecurity was uh super high and rising. It was really bad before the pandemic. The pandemic made it uh a hundred times worse or whatever it was. So we're like, let's feed people, let's see if we can do meals. And we teamed up with Feeding America, which they've been incredible to work with. They uh it's amazing how they subsidize all the different food they get from all these different grocery stores, and they've been feeding people for a long time. They have food banks all across the United States, all across the world. And so we teamed up with them and we were able to acquire a million meals from our donors and people, our partners that we've worked with at the Athletes Corner, and we went to the Warriors with it. We'd already done campaigns with athletes and some NFL teams before the Warriors, but we went to the Warriors and we're like, hey, let's we have an idea. How about every time the Warriors score a point, we give away a hundred meals. We have a million meals form for you guys. We'll let you guys be a part of this and give away meals as the players score points. And so every time the players are scoring, they're a part of something bigger than just two points going on the board. And we'll get to a million meals, and it's something that the fans can follow along with. It's tangible and it's performance-based, so it's fun for everybody to kind of follow along. And they heard it and they loved it, they fell in love with the idea. And Swishes for Dishes campaign was born where exactly what I said, every single time the war score point, a hundred meals gets provided to barrier families that are in need, and Feeding America does a good job of vetting what families really need these meals. And it's been really cool. And we've been able to see every step of the process from going to the food banks and seeing the food get prepared and bagged to having a drive-thru food bank uh event where the cars come through and we're able to put it in their trunks or in their back seats. And these aren't just meals like small, these are like grocery bags full that they call meals. It's just meals is, I guess, the best term to say when it comes to campaigns and talking about it. But these meals feed families for weeks, and it's so cool to see, especially with the pandemic, because so many people lost their livelihoods. There's a lot of people that were thriving before the pandemic, and the pandemic hits and they lose their restaurant or whatever it is, their business closes down, just not able to handle or make it through. So there was a lot of people that were struggling, and to see people and to be at those events and be able to give meals to people and seeing their gratitude and having them tell us thank you and tell us their stories, like it's really touching, and it's really cool and fulfilling and amazing to be able to do that. So we've been doing that for I guess next year would be our sixth year. And we're gonna do we've they've locked in three more years already. So we just want to keep doing that as as long as possible. That's our biggest campaign where we do a million meals every year, but there's other smaller ones where we've been able to provide meals to different communities, some of our other athlete partners, Zach Ertz, Adrian Peterson, some of these other guys that we've we've done campaigns with and we continue to do them with because all of my contacts from playing the NBA and meeting NFL players and other athletes along the way, and then Brand Career. He's been in sports for a long time and the tech space, so he's got a lot of contacts, so we just kind of use that. It's basically just us two, and then one social media guy, and it's been really cool to see God just kind of take it and kind of show off with the athletes' corner. So that's been an amazing thing, and just a blessing again to just help people and then come behind athletes, and because that's one of our main things. Our thing is to help families that are struggling physically, spiritually through the avenue of sports and help athletes give back and use their platform. So to be able to be an organization where other athletes can benefit from and whatever cause that they're super passionate about, come behind them and amplify whatever it is they're trying to do, and especially with tangible things like meals or anything that you can say is about family. We've done stuff with giving school supplies to kids that need them. And so it's been cool. It's been really cool, and we're just gonna keep going and keep giving back as much as possible, really.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

That's incredible. Thank you for doing that. I know, like you said, using your platform is so important, and a lot of people focus on just getting to the top level of the game, but then what's your responsibility when you get there? Even while while you're trying to get there. Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Yeah, yeah. That's I mean, I think that's one of the funnest parts about getting to any level, right? Or reaching the top of your profession or going professional or having any kind of platform is being able to do something good with it. Like what are you just gonna use it for yourself and spend all the money on yourself and give yourself the best life possible, which is not a bad thing, especially if you have a family and you want to just being able to take care of your family and to give back to loved ones and all that, that's all well and good. But when you're able to do more and help other people along the way and give back and see other people get blessed because you've been blessed, that's one of the best things that there is to experience, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

I love that. I'm gonna use that phrase now. By the way, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Do it. It's all you. Yeah, take it away.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

Let's talk cornbread.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Because I know we were talking before this, and in my mind it's just cornbread, it goes with your pulled pork, but there are flavors. So what's going on with the cornbread?

SPEAKER_01 39:44

So the cornbread, this is fun for me to talk about because my wife, she's Filipino, and she is just a genius in the kitchen. Right? Anything she's ever made is like the best version of that thing. And I'm not saying that just because she's my wife and she'll probably listen to this, but it really is the case. Like, just something as mundane as spaghetti and meatballs. She's found a way to make it extraordinary. And it's this Pinoy spaghetti and meatballs, like the Filipinos will know what I'm talking about. But even her version's even different than that, alright? She adds her touch and her love to it, and it's just amazing. It's one of my favorite dishes. But so the same thing with the cornbread. She just kind of she was always a cornbread connoisseur, and she would go to these places and get cornbread. Wherever cornbread was being sold, she'd go and get it, and she would eat it, and it would be dry and breakable, and she couldn't even hold it with one hand without it breaking apart. She'd have crumbs all over her. She's like, I could do this so much better. What is this? Let me figure out something here. So she went in the kitchen and cooked something up and figured out this amazing recipe, and she just did it for herself because it was what she would like. It was her just trying to please her own taste buds, basically. And so when we were dating, she was like, Do you like cornbread? I was like, Yes, who doesn't? And she was like, Well, I have some leftover cornbread in the fridge, you want to say, Yeah, let's do it. So she fed me the cornbread, and I was like, This is the best cornbread I've ever tasted. So, fast forward, we're married. She gave it to me again. I was like, You really need to share this with the world. Like, I'm serious here. This is the best cornbread I've ever had. She thought I was just being nice to make her feel good. I was like, no, I am being nice, but no, this is the best, and I'm not even joking. So, fast forward, we launched Calendar's famous Cormet cornbread a few years ago. We have five locations now. We're probably gonna be in Chase Center soon during the games, and the main thing is our texture. I talked about how dry everybody else's cornbread is usually. Ours is moist, that's what people say. It's moist, it sticks, it's not like too breakable, it's sweet but not too sweet. It's authentic to cornbread. It is cornbread, and it's just different than anything you've ever tasted. And then the flavors, we have flavors. When have you tasted anything other than just plain or jalapeno cornbread?

SPEAKER_00 42:16

Never, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:17

So we have blueberry white chocolate, which was the first thing I suggested when my wife was like, hey, I can make caramel cornbread. I was like, whoa, my wheels kind of got spinning. Can you do a blueberry white chocolate? I don't know why I thought of blueberry white chocolate, but that came out amazing. So that's one of our core flavors. Caramel, which I already just mentioned, banana walnut is unbelievable. People are like, was it just like banana bread? No, I'm like, no, it's it's cornbread, but it's banana walnut, and it's unbelievable. That's blueberry white chocolate was my first love. This is my new favorite one. Then we have a fiesta, which is like, we don't want to just do like a jalapeno or something plain. You can get jalapeno somewhere else. Fiesta is like all three peppers, red, yellow, green. I know there's more peppers, but those are the three peppers we have, and it's supposed to be like a Mexican twist type of thing. So that that one's really good too. Is that five? Oh, and Ube sell today. That's like one of our best sellers. It's like a Filipino classic. So yeah, and there's five locations share to Hercules, Fiz Drinks, the Syrah shop in San Francisco, Club Fugazi, which is uh dear San Francisco. That's this amazing Cirque de Soleil like show performance thing that they have in there, and they sell our cornbread there. And then we should be at Chase Center soon during the game. So we're keeping our fingers crossed on that. But it's been wonderful, and everybody that's tasted the cornbread loves it. So you'll have to taste some at some point.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Do you make it gluten free? Not yet. Soon. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Not yet.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

But everyone in San Francisco should go check it out.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Yes, yes, absolutely. And gluten free will be coming soon. We're not there yet. We're still at the beginning stages, again, the five locations, but We're gonna blast this thing off.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

I love it. Thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Thanks for having me. I enjoy it, Kelly. Appreciate you.