e desmond lee: david lee shares his grandfather’s spirit of giving back (Photo: @dlee042 Instagram account)
WARRIORS PRACTICE FACILITY, OAKLAND, CA — Last Friday against the Atlanta Hawks, Golden State Warriors power forward David Lee welcomed 12-year-old Sydney, a cancer patient at St. Jude Hospital who has been fighting a brain tumor.
St. Jude Children’s Hospital is located in Memphis and accepts children who do not have the means to pay for their treatment. NBA Cares has an initiative with St. Jude which designates a few NBA players like Lee, as well as some coaches, as “ambassadors” who pledge to contribute at least $20,000 each year and spend time with the hospital and its patients. The NBA designated last week, March 4th through 11th, as “Hoops For St. Jude Week” and to bring awareness to the cause.
“We’re doing ‘Hoops For St. Jude Week’, my third time being a part of this and I got a chance to actually visit the hospital last week, which was an unbelievable experience,” Lee said last Friday at morning shootaround at the Warriors practice facility, “It will be a fun time to see (Sydney) again tonight. It really puts things in perspective for me and it’s something I enjoy doing.”
Lee was approached by the NBA three years ago to become a St. Jude ambassador.
“I was a big fan of St. Jude, then I went to visit the hospital and it went to another level,” Lee added, “Just seeing the positivity and the way it affects kids’ lives. (Warriors Vice President of Public Relations) Raymond (Ridder) went with me and it was unbelievable, something’s that going to stick with me and something that, as long as I’m in the league, I’ll be a part of.”
“The situation a lot of these kids are in really struck a chord with me,” Lee said on Tuesday, in Sirius Radio spot with the NBA, “In some cases, it’s the worst situation, cancer and other other childhood diseases. It’s a hospital that does so much good for so many people and I’m just really happy that I can be a part of it and help support them.”
Last year, Daniel Brown of the San Jose Mercury News wrote a engaging story about Lee’s charitable giving, along with a little bit of background as it pertained to Lee’s grandfather, E. Desmond Lee (or “Des Lee” as he was known), a noted philanthropist who gave over $70 million of his life’s earnings to various causes, or even everyday people.
Des Lee, as he was known around St. Louis, made his fortune making and selling a pants creaser and hanger. He sold the company in 1993, then spent his remaining years writing a lot of checks, some of which are just now being uncovered.
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(David) Lee recounted how, while home in St. Louis this past summer, he headed out for sushi and was approached by a stranger.
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“The kid comes up to me, he’s maybe 25 years old, and he’s almost in tears,” Lee said. “He tells me that his brother worked as a valet at a restaurant my grandfather went to, and that his brother had really been down on his luck.
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“So my grandfather told the valet, ‘Look, if you want to go back to college, if you want to get your degree, I’ll pay for it — as long as you don’t tell anybody.’ And he did. And my grandfather paid for that.”
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Des Lee always told his grandson that handing out cash wasn’t enough. You had to make a connection, too, which explains Lee’s field trip to St. Jude’s. In the span of more than two hours, he heard from hospital administrators about the latest in cancer research, took a tour of the facilities and played cards with the kids.
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“He got schooled pretty good in UNO,” said Steele Ford, the senior director of sports marketing.
Though Lee was not a publicity seeker, he did not turn away reporters. And he was a terrific interview — salty, funny and uncommonly frank.
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When asked by the Post-Dispatch in 2003 if he thought wealthy St. Louisans were penny pinchers, he responded, “There’s no question about it. When I look at the number of wealthy people you put in the paper and see how many of them really give anything, it’s absolutely amazing.
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And he was prescient: “The selfishness of corporate executives that are part of the modern scene right now is repulsive to me,” he said in that same interview seven years ago. “Corporate executives are using every method in the world to just milk the stockholders. And that is going to affect the free-enterprise system of our great nation, not only nationally but internationally, and we’ve got to find a way to curtail that.”
The obituary goes on to reveal that Des Lee was the captain of his university’s basketball team, was once put in command of a group of African-Americans in World War II, and turned “a patented metal trouser creaser and hanger” company from $2,500 in seed money into a $75 million sale of the company in 1993.
“If he sat next to you, get ready to have your brain picked dry,” (long-time personal assistant Carole) Ritter said.
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He had an odd way of starting a conversation sometimes. Ritter said he opened their initial interview 25 years ago with this question: “How old are you?” Even then, that was an HR no-no. Didn’t matter.
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To Steffanie (Rockette, director of the Des Lee Collaborative Vision), whom he met 11 years ago, he said: “Howdy do, it’s so nice to meet a tall girl. How the hell are you?”
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Mr. Lee’s son, Gary, said his dad came from the old school where relationships were built on trust.
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“He would write deals out on his hand with a pen and then ask the person he was negotiating with to take the pen and put a check next to it. My dad had appreciation for lawyers. But if some one gave his word that was good enough for him.”
As for 12-year-old Sydney, she’s a Bay Area native and, based on the picture Lee posted on his Instagram account that accompanies this piece, an avid Warriors fan and probably a very good UNO player, if the object in Lee’s hand is any indication.
“When you work in a city and sign a long term contract, where we work, we’re really a part of the community,” Lee said on a radio show with 95.7 The Game last Thursday, “That’s one of the things I’ve really fallen in love with in the Bay, just as I did in New York. It’s good and we have so many wonderful fans here in the Bay.”
[EDITOR’S NOTE: In other news, Klay Thompson‘s grandfather passed away at the age of 94. Thompson will be attending the funeral and will miss tomorrow night’s game in Oakland against the Cleveland Cavaliers.]
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