<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Tyrus Thomas, one of the NBA?s most exciting young players, announced today the establishment of the Tyrus Thomas Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children in the Chicagoland area as well as his home state of Louisiana. The foundation will fund educational and recreational programs that target at-risk children. The Tyrus Thomas Foundation will be administered by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, which facilitated the distribution of more than $30 million in grants in 2006 and raised $44 million for Hurricane Katrina relief. Thomas is the first professional athlete to start a fund at the Foundation, which has more than 250 donors. ?I learned about basketball and life from great teachers of the game,? said Thomas who is entering his second year with the Chicago Bulls. ?They taught me how to focus, how to work hard and how to treat your teammates. The foundation will support people who are passing on the same lessons to children in Louisiana and my second hometown of Chicago.? Thomas plans to not only contribute regularly to the foundation, but will also lead efforts in raising money to grow the fund. The first fundraiser will be the Tyrus Thomas Celebrity Golf Tournament, which will tee off Friday, September 7 at the Greystone Golf and Country Club in Denham Springs, La. ?The golf outing is a great way to raise money for a good cause while having fun at the same time,? Thomas said. ?I know how fortunate I am to be in the position I?m in and it is very important to me to be able to give something back to the community.?</div> Source: Bulls.com
<div class="quote_poster">SP23 Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">That's great, most of the Bulls players are great at giving back to the communities.</div> With the money they make, that should really be expected. Thomas is still a standoffish jerk.
he always gave me the impression that he wasnt the best guy around, you know? such as saying that he was only in the dunk contest for the money...but this really helps his image and im glad to see it. i've always wanted to like tyrus (except when he and lsu beat duke in the turney in jj's senior year...), and now i feel that i truly can. way to go double T, haha.
The whole issue about the dunk contest money was to insult the NBA, he even stated that to Chicago papers when the city was pissed at him for his remarks. However, with how much money NBA players make it is no wonder they do stuff like this. It helps them out in taxes. That's why rich people do charity work and donate money, believe me it usually isn't out of the goodness of their hearts. I won't judge Tyrus though, but I'm just letting that be known.
