(KRON) — Oakland native and NBA All-Star participant Damian Lillard returned to his roots Thursday at his alma mater Oakland Excessive College to announce a $25,000 scholar scholarship.
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Lillard of the Milwaukee Bucks introduced the partnership with Portland State College for The PSU Damian Lillard Scholarship, which can assist construct a “pipeline for excellence” between 9 East Bay California excessive faculties and PSU. The star level guard was on the Portland Trailblazers from 2012 to 2023.
The scholarship quantity of $25,000 per 12 months is supposed to assist scale back the prices related to out-of-state tuition.
Lillard mentioned it is all a part of his private mission to maintain “reaching back and being able to touch and help as many as I can.”
“This scholarship is extremely important to me, it’s even more important to come and do this announcement at Oakland High,” Lillard instructed the packed auditorium of 300-plus college students and employees. “It’s always love for me for Oakland, being from Oakland and doing as much as I can for Oakland,”
For the 2025-26 college 12 months, greater than two dozen Damian Lillard Scholar-eligible college students have utilized to Portland State, and 15 have been admitted up to now.
“I know hard it is on parents, I know how hard it is on you guys as kids,” mentioned Lillard. “I caught the bus to school every day. I’ve seen a lot, I was around a lot. I could’ve easily been influenced by a lot. I know how much something like this can help, having this type of opportunity. I also grew up with a lot of people — middle school, high school — that stayed in Oakland after that, never got the opportunity to experience anything different or go and see other things so they can be inspired to do other things and be around people that come from different backgrounds and had different experiences. That’s what I’ve been fortunate enough to experience even before making the NBA and I know how important that was for me to continue to grow as a young man.”
Six Oakland Excessive College college students who utilized for the scholarship joined Lillard on-stage in the course of the announcement.
