For Thanksgiving, Isaiah Roby enjoys giving

This Thursday night is Thanksgiving in the United States and, as usual, the NBA will be on hiatus. It is also a great time of generosity for the players, and Isaiah Roby demonstrated it again in San Antonio.

The interior of the Spurs did not have an easy childhood, with a very young mother (17 years old at the time of the birth of her son), who worked hard to provide for the needs of her children, and a military father, often absent because sent to the Middle East, before their divorce in 2007.

“My mother didn’t come home from work until 7 p.m. some evenings”he remembers for the San Antonio Express News. “She was tired and we were eating cereal. We had these big bags of cereal, and sometimes it was our dinner. »

The player thus saw his mother sacrificing herself for her children. “She broke her back, she did her best to give me the chance to play basketball and to give me and my brothers enough to eat. She raised three children on less than $30,000 a year. I went to see my dad on the weekends, but my mom mostly took care of us. It’s a good example. »

Isaiah Roby, whose father will return from Afghanistan and Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder, therefore imitates his mother by working from adolescence. “After my basketball practices, I was going to mow lawns. I loved that. That’s how I learned to work hard, I was proud of what I was doing. »

Memories that come to mind when, on Tuesday, the interior gave away turkeys, groceries (about 200 meals) and tickets to Spurs games with a food bank in San Antonio, as part of “Season of Giving “, an initiative of the NBA during the holiday season in favor of the underprivileged.

“My family could have benefited from all this”recognizes Roby. “Luckily I was able to take advantage of different programs that helped me and my family. And I know today, thanks to Gregg Popovich who reminds us, that I live in luxury, that this is not the real life. »