Paul Pierce
Captain, Boston Celtics
Five-time NBA All-Star
Since entering the NBA in 1998 with the Boston Celtics, Paul Pierce has emerged as one of the league’s brightest stars and a cornerstone of the resurgent franchise. On the parquet floor, Paul is the Celtics “go-to-man” as the team’s leading scorer and captain. His leadership extends to his off-the-court activities where Paul has worked tirelessly within the community to better the lives of young people in the Greater Boston area and his hometown of Los Angeles.
Paul is a five-time NBA All-Star and consistently ranks among the league’s scoring elite. His game is a package of grace, power, and speed honed from countless hours of practice and competition from the playground basketball courts of Los Angeles to the gyms at Inglewood High School and the University of Kansas. His astonishing repertoire of offensive moves, both inside and out, whether it is pulling up and draining a jump-shot or slashing to the basket, enables Paul to quickly take over a game and set the tempo. In only his second season, during the 2001-2002 campaign, Paul tallied more than 2,000 points, becoming the first Celtic to accomplish this feat since Larry Bird in 1988. The following season, as he helped lead the Celtics to the Eastern Conference Division Finals, Paul became the first Celtic in team history to finish as the league leader in total points scored (2144), prompting Lakers Star Shaquille O’Neal to give Paul the nickname “the Truth.”
Paul’s star shines just as bright off the court as evidenced by his ongoing community service initiatives in the Boston and Los Angeles areas. Paul serves as the NBA and Celtics spokesperson for the "Read to Achieve" program, visiting Boston-area elementary schools every month, where he conducts reading seminars for students. During the season Paul also hosts 34 local children at every Celtics home game in his special section "Pierce's Playground."
In the off-season, Paul’s community relations efforts have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for various youth groups in the Boston area. In the summers of 2001 and 2002, Paul hosted a celebrity softball game in Boston and raised more than $200,000 to benefit Boston-area charities including the Boys & Girls Club and The Mayors Scholarship Fund. The game drew a wide array of top athletes and entertainers including Hollywood stars Matt Damon, Tara Reid, Shannon Elizabeth and Joey McIntyre.
In 2002, Paul formally announced the creation of his charitable foundation - The Truth Fund. The organization’s mission is to provide educational and life-enriching opportunities for disadvantaged youth. The vision of the Fund is to ensure that opportunities are available for young people to recognize their dreams through mentoring programs, technology and other educational needs as well as to foster stable and safe environments for children.
His outreach efforts were recognized in 2002 when he received the NBA Home Team Community Service Award stemming from his community initiatives. As part of the award, the NBA and the Fannie Mae foundation donated $50,000 in Pierce’s name to the Project Hope charity in Boston.
Building on the past success of his charity softball games, Paul saw an opportunity in the fall of 2003, to take his fundraising activities from the softball diamond to the fashion runway. Paul partnered with leading designer, Tommy Hilfiger, and men’s fashion magazine, GQ, to create “Runway 34” a fashion show benefit featuring more than 30 Tommy Hilfiger models and special guests to benefit The Truth Fund and The Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation.
This past year Paul teamed up with fellow NBA All-Star Baron Davis to Host the 2006 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a well-known LA based charity event created by Ervin “Magic” Johnson more than 20 years ago. Honored by Magic’s selection to take over the event, Paul and Baron created LA STARS, their charitable event group to build on Magic’s tradition of creating a weekend of red carpet events to benefit their respective charities with the goal of bringing mentoring opportunities to at-risk youth in LA.
In addition to his charitable work, Paul serves as a Governor for Tufts Medical Center as well as a number of the nation’s top consumer brands including Nike, Microsoft, Spalding, Pepsi, and McDonalds.
Whether it is his work on or off the court, Paul Pierce has emerged as that rare athlete who understands that greatness means more than scoring baskets and winning games. It means touching lives and working together to help make the world a better place for the children of today and tomorrow.