The Boston Celtics are getting ready to complete the regular season and start their quest for the 18th championship in franchise history.
So, when time away from the court becomes available, most players would take the day to rest or spend it with family and friends. Not Malcolm Brogdon.
The Celtics guard traveled to New York to speak at the United Nations General Assembly about the importance of clean water Thursday.
“I think its the first time in maybe about 50 years the General Assembly has been focused on clean water,” Brogdon said in an interview with NBC Sports Boston’s Abby Chin.
Brogdon said he only spoke for about two to three minutes, but he spoke about his passion for clean water and the work of his foundation, the Brogdon Family Foundation.
“I have always wanted to have an impact on the world, bigger than basketball, bigger than myself, bigger than my family,” Brogdon explained. “And clean water has been that for me.”
Brogdon explained he partnered with former NFL player Chris Long and his foundation, “The Water Boys,” early on in his career when he was with the Milwaukee Bucks and created his foundation about three years ago.
“It’s been doing really well. We’ve been having a lot of impact on a lot of lives ever since,” Brogdon explained. “We go to East Africa, we go to Tanzania, Kenya, and we build clean water wells.
“We found is water as a whole disproportionately impacts women and children. When a community doesn’t have clean water, oftentimes the women or the young girls and children have to travel really kilometers to go get clean water, to find it.”
Women and children are often lost, killed by animals, or even attacked during their journeys which can also affect their education.
“So, it really has an impact on the community as a whole because, especially in those countries that I’m in,” Brogdon explained. “Women play a huge part in the manual labor and a lot of what goes on in the work that’s being done.”
Basketball is still the main focus for the Celtics role player, but Brogdon wants to impact the world.
“I always heard the term, ‘Keep the main thing, the main thing,’ and right now, that’s basketball,” Brogdon said.
Basketball has opened the door for Brogdon to build a platform and use his voice for his passion off the court.
“On the back side, I’ll always continue, even during the playoffs, I’ll continue my work with the foundation,” he said. “That’s something that never stops because that’s something that will go beyond basketball. Basketball really started it and lit the fire for me. Now it will travel beyond and most likely be my career after basketball.”
