There are plenty of NBA guys who will tell you all about their big money charitable foundations. For many of them it is a tax write-off and a chance to get some good PR but something they barely pay attention to, while there is a handful who are serious about the cause they focus on. That said, all of them love to do good in front of the cameras.
Which is why this story about Wizards rookie Otto Porter, out of a letter to the Washington Post, is so fantastic.
Porter is a Georgetown guy who stopped by a D.C. sandwich shop, and we’ll let the letter tell the rest.
The letter writer repeats the old cliché — our true character is revealed with what we do when we think nobody is looking. In that case, Porter comes off as more caring and compassionate than most.
Both as media and as a society, we can focus too much on the negative — the players and coaches who get DUIs, who get arrested for a fight, who burn through all their cash. Not just with NBA players but with celebrities of every walk. But there are plenty of them who are good people who are good fathers/mothers, who are quietly active helping the needy one way or another, who are living lives we’d be proud to have our children aspire to. Those get overlooked all to often.
It’s nice to put a spotlight on the good for a change. We could use more of it.