Get 40% Off
🤯 This Tech Portfolio is up 29% YTD! Join Now to Get April’s Top PicksGet The Picks – Just 99 USD

In emotional return to Greece, Antetokounmpo promises to help youth

Published 06/26/2017, 01:52 PM
Updated 06/26/2017, 01:52 PM
© Reuters. Greek basketball players, brothers Thanassis and Giannis Antetokounmpo attend an event at the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens

© Reuters. Greek basketball players, brothers Thanassis and Giannis Antetokounmpo attend an event at the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens

By Phoebe Fronista

ATHENS (Reuters) - Giannis Antetokounmpo, Greece's homegrown NBA All-Star, made an emotional return to the city he grew up in and promised to help children in Greece and Africa make it in life.

With his brother Thanasis, who plays for the Spanish club MoraBanc Andorra, the "Antetokounmbros" were in Athens for the launch of an Onassis Foundation college scholarship for children of migrants born in Greece, inspired by their path to success.

"I was a young kid, 17 years old, and the Americans came and gave me a chance," 22-year-old Giannis said. "And I want to be that American for the kids here in Greece and Africa."

The brothers were born in Greece to Nigerian parents. As children they sold trinkets on the streets of Athens to get by.

They were only granted Greek citizenship in 2013.

Before an audience at Greece's Onassis Cultural Centre on Saturday, the brothers spoke candidly about their hardscrabble childhood and said they felt humbled and obligated to help others who grew up poor.

"It's just unbelievable, how we started out when we were little, and we find ourselves here now and giving opportunities to kids. Who would have believed it?," Giannis said.

Giannis -- or the "Greek Freak" as he is known to basketball fans worldwide -- is the youngest player ever to star in an NBA All-Star game.

His rags-to-riches story has moved and inspired Greeks. On Sunday, the brothers played an exhibition game in Athens to a cheering crowd of thousands.

"I think Greeks love us because we are good kids, and because we take Greece with us wherever we go and we promote Greece a lot," Giannis said. "And we haven't changed, we are still the same because we had terrific parents, my mum and dad."

The brothers choked back tears at the sound of their mother Veronica, sitting in the audience on Saturday, singing a Greek nursery rhyme she used to wake them up with.

In the family's old neighborhood of Sepolia, the basketball court where the brothers practiced features a giant mural of Giannis in his Milwaukee Bucks jersey.

And in a cafe across the road, the jersey Giannis wore in 2014 when he played on Greece's national team hangs on the wall.

"What they have accomplished is a feat" said Yannis Tzikas, the cafe's owner, who has known the brothers since they were skinny schoolkids and still flies out to matches to support them.

"It's so moving, after the misery and poverty they went through," he said.

© Reuters. Greek basketball players, brothers Thanassis and Giannis Antetokounmpo attend an event at the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens

(This story corrects to clarify scholarship offered by Onassis Foundation in second paragraph)

Latest comments

Risk Disclosure: Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and may be affected by external factors such as financial, regulatory or political events. Trading on margin increases the financial risks.
Before deciding to trade in financial instrument or cryptocurrencies you should be fully informed of the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite, and seek professional advice where needed.
Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. The data and prices on the website are not necessarily provided by any market or exchange, but may be provided by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual price at any given market, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Fusion Media and any provider of the data contained in this website will not accept liability for any loss or damage as a result of your trading, or your reliance on the information contained within this website.
It is prohibited to use, store, reproduce, display, modify, transmit or distribute the data contained in this website without the explicit prior written permission of Fusion Media and/or the data provider. All intellectual property rights are reserved by the providers and/or the exchange providing the data contained in this website.
Fusion Media may be compensated by the advertisers that appear on the website, based on your interaction with the advertisements or advertisers.
© 2007-2024 - Fusion Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.