After the Washington Wizards finished shootaround, many met with students, parents, and teachers from Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida as they prepare for their March For Our Lives on Saturday. Shooting guard Bradley Beal shared his thoughts on their advocacy as well as Phil Chenier hours before his No. 45 jersey is retired and raised to the rafters of Capital One Arena.
On Phil Chenier’s impact on the organization:
“It’s unbelievable. It’s more than deserving. I was happy to be the one who told him about it. It’s a special night for him, he’s been a mentor to a lot of us for many years. The knowledge that he constantly shares with us is always accepted and we accept it with open minds, open hearts. He’s won a championship before. He’s shown what it takes to be great and he’s going to be rewarded for it tonight. Nothing but congratulatory praises from all of us to him.”
On Chenier’s accomplishments impacting him:
“It definitely motivates me for that to be a goal of mine. Especially the fact that we both played the same position. The knowledge that he shares with me and just the constant push he puts on me every now and then, whenever he sees me. It’s always motivation for me to get better and now I feel like this is probably like the final touch of it. Having yours jersey retired by a franchise that you played a lot of part in their success. That’s a motivational push in itself.”
On being role models for the Stoneman Douglas students:
“At the end of the day, we’re all human beings regardless of what our careers are, what our jobs are. A lot of us have families, kids, brothers and sisters, and the last thing that you want to happen is what happened to several of those families. That’s the last thing you can ever imagine so for us to be able to lift up their spirits, for them to know who we are, that’s amazing in itself. We don’t know their story, we don’t know what they experienced, we don’t know what to think with what their going through. For us to just take their minds off of it for a few minutes, man, is always a great feeling.”
On meeting students putting basketball into perspective:
“Those are two different situations. Makes you appreciate what you have. Your job, the life that we have, it’s definitely kind of a motivational push for you to continue to be their good role model, continue to play you heart out every time you step out onto the floor. It could be somebody who never knew who you were and then they meet you today and see how well you play tonight and become a fan of yours. You never know. It definitely works two-fold. You never want to think about it, granted you can’t mix basketball with it, but at the end of the day, we’re humans. Basketball isn’t everything.”
On the students organizing their march:
“I think it’s great, it’s great. It’s a testament to where our world needs to lead to, where we need to come to together as a society. It starts with us younger generation. We got to come together and love and do things like this. I think what they are doing is awesome. It’s spreading positive vibes and just true humanitarian work that their doing and it’s amazing that sometimes we have to learn from the youth on how to do things.”
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