NBA star Chris Paul has been a long-time supporter of HBCUs and he talked about it in a conversation with renowned entertainment journalist Kevin Frazier in a one-on-one discussion with the Milken Institute on Wednesday. According to Paul, both his parents attended Winston-Salem State and he’d been involved with the institution since he was a child.
“Growing up in Winston Salem, and this is the craziest thing, there was Wake Forest University there, and there was Winston Salem State University there, both in Winston Salem. As a kid, you don’t know one is a PWI and one is an HBCU. I just knew that on Saturdays, my family went to one Salem State football games. Right? And it was a lot of people there who looked like me. Right? And I knew Wake Forest was sort of down the street, but it was a bunch of trees. You couldn’t see campus. You get older, all this stuff starts to make a little bit more sense.”
He then talked about his recruiting process out of high school and how Winston-Salem State didn’t recruit him, presumably because they felt that they wouldn’t be able to land his services.
“I also realized when I was becoming this high school phenom when it came to basketball, Winston Salem State didn’t even recruit me. Right, and it’s not like that Winston-Salem State was dumb about it; they probably realized they didn’t have a chance because growing up you knew you had to go to one of those blue bloods or whatnot to make it to the NBA. So, it was the Dukes. It was the Carolinas. It was all of this different type stuff.”
Paul eventually attended Wake Forst and built his profile as a top NBA draft prospect. In two seasons with the team, he averaged 15 points per game, 6.3 assists per game, and 2.5 steals per game. He then was selected with the 4th overall pick in the 2005 NBA draft by the then-New Orleans Hornets. He has had a prosperous 19-year career that surely will lead to him being in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame once he retires.
Chris Paul eventually enrolled at Winston-Salem State University to finish his college journey. He graduated with a degree in Mass Communications from the HBCU in December 2022. Prior to his graduation, Paul was already a strong advocate for HBCUs. He displayed different HBCU apparel during his time in the NBA Bubble in late 2020 and partnered with ESPN+ to produce “Why Not Us,” a documentary series highlighting various black college sports programs across the country. He also launched the Chris Paul HBCU Tip-Off event, which showcases four black college basketball programs in early-season games.
During his interview with Frazier, he mentioned his collaboration with Harvard Business School to introduce its Entertainment, Media, and Sports program to specific HBCUs. The aim of the collaboration was to create opportunities for students interested in pursuing careers in these industries.
“After one of my NBA seasons, I got an opportunity to go to this really cool class at Harvard with Anita Elberse. It was about sports and entertainment at Harvard. I was staying in a dorm room and everything, going to this class. It’s called the BIMS program; this class is so dope. You start to learn and realize that some schools don’t have the finance to offer such classes. I talked to the professor, we partnered together and started offering these classes at HBCUs.”
