NBA star donates shoes and gear to entire Fort Worth Boswell basketball teams
Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart graduated from Flower Mound Marcus High School, and he outfitted the entire boys basketball team from ... Boswell.
The players on the team are so smitten with their new Puma shoes some of them are wearing them everywhere.
“Honestly, it was ticking us off. They would not take the shoes off,” Boswell coach Brian Blackburn said. “There were a few of them wearing them outside of just basketball and basketball practice. Wearing them to school. In the hallways. Everywhere. We had to tell them, ‘Take them off.’”
Just before Thanksgiving, Smart, who signed an apparel contract with Puma last fall, outfitted the entire Boswell varsity and junior varsity teams with his signature basketball shoes and warmup suits.
Blackburn and his assistant, Kenny Boren, didn’t ask Smart for the donation. Smart just did it.
At the time the shoes and gear arrived, Boswell was 0-3. Since then, Boswell has gone 4-1.
It’s gotta be the shoes!
So why does a Flower Mound Marcus grad hookup a team from Fort Worth Boswell?
Boren was an assistant coach under Danny Henderson at Flower Mound Marcus, when Smart was leading the team to consecutive Class 5A state titles.
Blackburn also worked as an assistant under Henderson.
Boren remained close with Smart when the guard was thriving at Oklahoma State. Smart is entering his seventh NBA season, all with the Celtics, and as is often the case with athletes they tend to remain loyal to those who knew them before they acquired fame and wealth.
“I’ve known Marcus since he was in the eighth grade and I was one of the first people to meet him there [at Marcus],” Boren said. “Our relationship skyrocketed. He’s like family to me.”
Blackburn said all of this came about from a Puma employee, who had previously worked with Smart when she was with the Boston Celtics.
They were the ones to arrange to have the shoes and gear sent to Boswell.
Gifting free shoes and gear is not uncommon in basketball. It costs zero to the player, and to the company it’s normally falls under their marketing budgets.
In March of 2018, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry gifted the entire University of Maryland-Baltimore County men’s basketball team a fresh load of his new Under Armour shoes after UMBC became the first 16 seed to win an NCAA Tournament game, rolling over top-ranked Virginia, 74-54.
For the gifter, this is not a huge expense.
For the receiver, the gift can provide a huge relief.
Most new basketball shoes of any quality cost in the area of $100.
“Most of the time the parents, or the kids, are buying their own stuff,” Blackburn said. “For Marcus to do this, it doesn’t just help us out but it really helps a lot of players and their parents whose funds may be stretched too thin.”
Smart’s donation likely means the entire team now supports the Boston Celtics, but Boswell’s colors will remain blue and gold so don’t expect any change to green and white.
This story was originally published December 15, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
