Brandon Roy Succeeding as Garfield High School Basketball Coach After Shooting

Brandon Roy, while staying out of the public spotlight since his Portland Trail Blazers days, found himself the center of a shooting last spring that had more questions than answers that came with the passing days. Roy had finished up a perfect season and championship with Nathan Hale High School in Seattle as a first-year head coach just a couple of months earlier. And it was the shooting that played a role in Roy making a job change.

As detailed by Katherine Cook of KGW, who caught up with Roy while in town for a basketball tournament, the shooting gave his life new perspective:

Roy said any hesitation he might have had about switching jobs went out the window last spring.

Roy was with friends in Compton when police said he was shot in the leg after a group unrelated to Roy’s opened fire.

“Everyone I talked to after that was like, ‘life is a precious thing, so you’ve got to go for those opportunities and things you want,’” said Roy.

“The shooting was part of it, but it wasn’t the whole thing… it was just too hard to resist not going back to where I played my high school ball, my parents went to Garfield, all my family did.”

Garfield is 15-0 under Roy, who went 29-0 at Nathan Hale. Junior small forward Jamon Kemp—the son of Shawn Kemp—is one of Roy’s proteges, like Michale Porter Jr. the year prior at Hale, and he’s feeling Roy’s all-around impact:

His players ... said they were thrilled by Roy’s hire.

“It’s amazing, I learned so much this year,” said Kemp. “[Roy] taught me personal stuff from experiences that he’s had, he just passed it down.”

You can find video of Cook’s interview here:

And read the rest of Cook’s piece on Roy here.