Sean C. Morgan
Portland Blazers goodwill ambassador Nick Jones told children at Sweet Home Public Library that staying in school is important and commended them for their reading throughout summer vacation in the library’s summer reading program.
Jones told a group of about 30 children about his career during the visit on Wednesday last week.
Jones played basketball during grade school and high school in Portland. He later attended University of Oregon and played ball there. He was drafted by the San Diego Rockets and played in the National Basketball Association for a couple of years before playing three years with the Golden State Warriors.
“What I do now is probably the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” Jones said. What he does now is travel to schools and communities telling children the importance of finishing school.
“I go to a lot of basketball camps during the summer, and the kids aren’t thinking about education,” Jones said. They’re thinking about basketball, perhaps someday playing in the NBA, but there are only 430 players in the league. The job market in the NBA is small.
Every season, the NBA drafts 29 players, Jones said. That means 29 players must leave the league.
Dreaming of playing in the NBA or other sports is fine and didn’t want to discourage children from aiming at such goals, he said, but he urged the children to “back up the dream with the best education possible. If I hadn’t gone to college, I wouldn’t be doing what I am today.”
He asked each child at the library that day what grade they were in and what they planned to do in the real world, when they grew up.
Many of the younger ones did not know. Some planned to play sports. Others planned to become dentists or take on other occupations.
He stressed to those students that they need to attend college, to have a backup to their dreams. To those approaching and in high school, he said they should figure out by their senior year what they plan to do, for now to start thinking about it.
“You have to think about your own future,” Jones said. “Because you guys are the future.”
The students gathered at the library participated in the library’s summer reading program. Total, 71 children read nearly 1,500 books this summer.
“You should give yourselves a hand because you have worked harder than the rest,” Jones said.
Jones assisted librarian Sandy Leonard in presenting awards for the summer program, which included tickets to the Oregon State Fair.
Following that, Jones signed Rip City magazines and posed for pictures for the children.