John Wall skips preseason game for cancer fundraiser in memory of late friend
John Wall missed the Washington Wizards’ preseason matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night. He wasn’t hurt, or sick, or benched, or anything like that. The two-time All-Star just had a more important place to be.
.@JohnWall surprising #MiyahsTroupe at #LightTheNight DC! #Walk4LLS pic.twitter.com/n7KLToinab
— Monumental Network (@MonumentalNtwrk) October 17, 2015
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For one night, Wall handed the keys to Bradley Beal, Ramon Sessions and Gary Neal in the backcourt — which resulted in a 105-101 road win, by the way — and, with the blessing of Wizards brass, returned to D.C. to take to the streets in the Light the Night Walk, a fundraising event for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society aimed at furthering research on blood cancers.
Wall had promoted the walk via social media and, through his John Wall Family Foundation, had sponsored a team of walkers called “Miyah’s Troupe,” consisting of the friends and family of Damiyah “Miyah” Telemaque-Nelson. Wall got to know Miyah last year — after being diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma, a fast-growing form of cancer that typically develops in the abdomen and requires intense chemotherapy treatment, she wanted to meet music star Nicki Minaj, and the Wizards point guard helped make that happen.
Unfortunately, Miyah’s battle ended last December, a few weeks shy of her sixth birthday, leaving Wall very emotional after a 26-point, 17-assist performance in a double-overtime win over the Boston Celtics:
Wall continued his relationship with Miyah’s family after her passing, showing support both publicly (crying as he spoke at Miyah’s funeral, sponsoring the team and contributing “an additional five-figure gift toward non-Hodgkin lymphoma research,” according to Dan Steinberg of the D.C. Sports Bog) and privately (continuing to exchange texts with Miyah’s mom, Kadisha Telemaque, who called Wall “a man that gave [Miyah] hope with everything he did for her”). Wall didn’t expect to be able to attend the walk, due to the Wizards’ preseason schedule … but “that changed when Coach Randy Wittman approached Wall later in the week and asked him if he would like to attend,” according to Jorge Castillo of the Washington Post:
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“He still has that personal relationship with the family of Miyah, who passed,” Wittman said after the Wizards defeated the Bucks without Wall Saturday night. “This is a back-to-back. I wasn’t going to play him anyway. And so, hey, if we got players that are committed to that kind of stuff, I don’t have a problem sending a guy back to do that in the preseason. So I give John a lot of credit. He wanted to be there with her mother and he had the opportunity to do that.”
According to CBS D.C., Wall “posed for pictures, walked with the crowd and offered his support to those who have cancer or have lost someone to cancer.” That gesture — of contributing time as well as money to the causes he believes in, of showing support by actually showing up — continues a pattern of behavior Wall recently exhibited by spending time with D.C.-area homeless children after donating $400,000 to a local program that serves them.
This has been the approach that Wall has taken ever since signing his five-year maximum contract extension with the Wizards in 2013, as detailed by then-Washington Post scribe (and now Yahoo Sports NBA senior writer) Michael Lee:
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“It’s a humbling experience and great opportunity to sign this contract, but it’s not about just for me,” Wall said. “The main thing is giving back and giving back the right way. Giving back to these charities is a great opportunity.” […]
“I want to donate my time along with the money,” Wall said. “My whole thing is I was put on this earth to be something, and I was blessed to be a great basketball player, but my main thing was to keep striving to be a better person. That’s one thing my mom always instilled in me, it doesn’t matter what nobody thinks about you as a basketball player, they are going to look at you as a person first.”
Credit Wall for giving us all something pretty admirable to look at, and Wittman and the Wizards for recognizing that some things matter more than an exhibition contest in Milwaukee.
Hat-tip to Bullets Forever.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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