The Charitable Side of Rasheed Wallace

“A lot of people have seen [this side of me],” said Rasheed. “Like I said, I do this with and without the NBA. My wife and I do it sometimes. I do it with my own kids sometimes, so it’s all cool.”

I can’t get enough of Rasheed Wallace. It doesn’t matter what uniform he’s wearing, I will adore this man till the day I die…I love the attitude, heart, hustle and flow. I love the way he laughs and I love the way he taunts. There is only ONE Rasheed Wallace and he does it right. Contrary to what some may think of the fiery ex-Piston, the 14-year veteran made his first appearance this week as a Celtic…and it was all for the kids. The new Celtic spent Tuesday afternoon reading kids “Make Way for the Ducklings,” and afterward he took a duck boat tour of Boston with them.

“I’ve been doing it pretty much my whole career, with and without the NBA,’’ Wallace said. “It’s nothing new. It’s actually fun for me, to interact with kids - that’s my Achilles’ heel. I’m real big on kids and doing things with them…Every kid likes to be read to, or even just have an adult play with them a lot, even if it’s girls with tea parties or boys playing in the dirt…It’s all part of being a kid. It’s something we all want to do.”

But what I really love about Rasheed, is the fact that he flies under the radar in terms of charity work…he doesn’t do it for publicity, and he doesn’t do it to polish-up his image: “A lot of people have seen [this side of me],” he said. “I do this with and without the NBA. My wife and I do it sometimes. I do it with my own kids sometimes, so it’s all cool…I wanted to continue what I did in Detroit, what I did in Portland, what I do in Philadelphia, North Carolina, and what I did in Washington when I was there with the Bullets many moons ago. It’s something the kids look forward to, you know, to have a professional athlete — football, baseball, basketball, whatever — come to their school in their neighborhood and watch them interact, and interact with them.”

Love you Sheedy…keep up the good work~

As always, thanks for reading. Delinda@athlebrities.com