Mourning donates (Miami part of his) salary to charity Is the guy anything but classy? Always had great deal of respect for Mourning and was sad to see him not play for those couple of seasons. Hopefully he plays on next year to get his ring cause he ain't going to get it this year, not with T-Mac around! (Early reports indicate Mourning will be playing for the Rockets next season....)
Very classy indeed... but have to thank the New Jersey Nets as well. Without their charitable contributions to Mourning, none of this is possible. The Nets have been extremely generous in their funding of The Aging Georgetown Center Buyout Fund.
Patrick Ewing may come out of retirement to play for them (the Nets) next season, only to be bought out 10 games into the season.
Oh please...athletes give to charity all the time without getting AP stories written about it. Sounds to me like his publicist is trying to extend his career a year or two...
WHo cares if a athlete gives a few hundred thousand? If I made over 100 million in my career playing basketball, you can bet I'll donate at least a few million to charity or open up my own.
This is hardly the only time Mourning has ever donated money to charity. It's simply the latest donation he's made. I'd be very surprised to learn that he hadn't donated millions to charity over the years, as this isn't the first time I've heard of him donating to charity. Further, I seem to recall that he does have a charity in his name but I'm not positive about that. The fact of the matter is you guys are way too cynical. Such an act of good deserves acknowledgement regardless of circumstance. Just look at it this way: the opposite end of the spectrum of someone ridiculously wealthy giving to charity to help others would be someone unusually poor hurting others by stealing. In that case would you be willing to say, "Who cares? If I was that poor I'd be stealing too. Their crime doesn't deserve acknowledgement." Probably not. Especially if they stole from you.
I'm not so impressed. 300k in charity versus the 9 to 12M he got from the Raptors without earning. A-Train was dead on that classier athletes keep their work quiet (Olajuwon certainly fit in that category). DaDakota also is correct in knowing that athletes, on the hook for millions in taxes every year, regularly contribute big dollars to charity since they know it's leaving their pocket one way or another. Why not get a good image for it? All that said, Mourning has been a very good community guy for Miami every year he's been there. The difference maker is when guys put in the time and effort to put on charity events, as opposed to simply writing checks. Evan