Aussie NBA superstar Patty Mills helps bushfire affected communities
Aussie NBA superstar Patty Mills headed home for a whirlwind trip to help bushfire affected towns last summer and was so inspired he has now set up a foundation to help young Australians.
Victoria
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They call it the Rodeo Road trip.
Each February, the San Antonio Spurs become nomads travelling the country on a gruelling NBA away schedule. This year, the itinerary featured Los Angeles, Sacramento, Denver, Oklahoma City and Utah.
Spurs guard and Aussie basketball superstar Patty Mills reckons it’s brutal.
“In the month of February, the San Antonio rodeo kicks us out of our arena so we have all of our games on the road, it’s known as the Rodeo Road trip. We have the first half of the road trip then the NBA All-Star game break, we get about 5-6 days off, then kick off the second leg of the road trip,’’ Mills tells Weekend.
“February is brutal every year because of the amount of travel we have.”
This year, the road trip took a big detour for Mills, with the triple Olympian making a whirlwind trip back to Australia amid the devastating bushfires.
Mills and wife Alyssa — the pair met at college at Saint Mary’s, California — along with a 13-member team made up of Americans and Aussies, mapped out a four-day journey through the south coast of NSW, hitting the ground, rolling up their sleeves and helping fire-affected communities and businesses.
“We had a convoy of seven cars and a big truck full of supplies. We started in Batemans Bay and hit places like Mogo, we went down to Cobargo, East Lynne where the animal shelter was and we helped build a wombat and bird enclosure which was super, super cool,’’ the
31-year-old says.
“Coming back for the fires was full of emotion, the one thing I told our team was that we’re going into other people’s homes and communities and we need to tell them the only reason we’re here is to help. We dropped off a ton of supplies, we helped animal shelters, we helped small businesses whether they were in towns or on the side of the road and we did some Indigenous land management with fire practitioners. All of that in such a short trip was very emotional but the thing that was really heartfelt was that these people opened their arms and (welcomed) us into their homes.
“We’re not from where they’re from but we came to help. The smiles and joy we were able to bring was very heart warming. There were tears and that’s when we knew what we were doing was the right thing and we were having an impact on the people, wildlife and the environment as a whole.”
Mills says adding Australia onto the Rodeo Road trip itinerary was about showing respect to affected communities.
“It wasn’t a hard conversation (with Spurs coach Gregg Popovich) because the whole world was watching the devastation unfold back in Australia. It was just what I’m thinking and what I want to do, ‘but don’t worry I’ll be back in one piece and ready to roll’.
“This is not allowed to happen on a normal basis, these were extraordinary circumstances and unprecedented times and my team and coaching staff gave me their blessing. It says a lot about the Spurs organisation and the people. It’s why I’ve been there so long — we share the same core values.
“It’s a long trip and it takes a toll on your body when you know you’ve got to come back and play but these are the things that make me tick. If I can give back and experience these feelings and emotions it gives me the most power and strength in the world to go back and play basketball to the best of my ability.”
The trip and its wide-reaching impact played a big part in Mills launching his own foundation, Team Mills. In lockdown and with the NBA season on hold since March, Mills was able to fast-track the launch during isolation in San Antonio.
“It’s always been an idea, we just haven’t had the time to piece it together. With back-to-back NBA seasons, Olympics and World Cup campaigns you’re playing basketball all-year round so it’s hard to try and pull off something really meaningful that I’m passionate about. I never want to do things half-arsed.”
MILLS MAKES HUGE DONATION
Ahead of the July 30 return of the NBA season, Mills put his money where his heart is.
“I’m proud to say I’m taking every cent from these eight games we’re playing, which for me will turn out to be $1,017, 818 and 54 cents, and donating that directly back to Black Lives Matter Australia, Black Deaths in Custody and to a new campaign I’m part of — We Got You — which is dedicated to ending racism in sport in Australia,’’ he says. “So, I’m playing because I don’t want to leave any money on the table that could be going directly to black communities.”
Mills is the only child to mother Yvonne, an Indigenous Australian from South Australia, and father Benny from Torres Strait Island. He was born and raised in Canberra and was given the keys to the nation’s capital in 2014 after helping guide the Spurs to the NBA championship.
“I have a very unique, rich, full-of-history background. That’s who I am and that’s where I get all my strength from,’’ he says. “My upbringing was walking around barefoot, fishing, going out on the dingy out on the Torres Strait, going to mum’s country and just being in the community and I think that’s why I feel so comfortable going back to the community and helping people because that’s where I come from. I’m a people person because I come from a community.
“It starts with my culture, the traditions I was brought up on and those values. I’ve found a way to stay connected to all those things while living on the other side of the world and that’s the coolest thing about culture.”
So, what does community actually mean to Mills? “I think when you understand that you come from a community you know how to give back to it,’’ he says.
“Community to me is always going to be how to give back and essentially a life lesson of not constantly taking but continuing to give back. Community isn’t just the present, it’s all those lessons, teachings and values passed on from generation to generation.”
The project-based foundation will focus on the key pillars of family, environment, culture, pathways, empowering women, multiculturalism and diversity.
“It’s not something that’s close to my heart — it is my heart,’’ Mills says.
“Those values are what I was raised on by my parents, my family and my culture. Where I’m at today in terms of my life has been through all these values so to be able to implement what I have gone through in my journey is important, sharing my experiences and getting younger generations to see that and know how I’m going to help them.
“All hands is the motto we live off because that’s what it takes. We’re all Millennials and young in the sense of understanding how to reach other people our age and younger to get them to understand it’s all about the next generation and that there’s cool, unique ways to be able to give back. That’s who we are, we’re essentially a family that likes to give off good vibes and positive energy to people especially those who need it most.
“Being a basketball player and doing what I do on the basketball court has been able to inspire the younger generation and people back home and the foundation now has a platform to truly make an impact and inspire people. It will let me follow through and execute that exact same feeling in a more direct way and that gets me excited.
“We can help different people with different things in different ways, creative ways, cool ways, fun ways not only in Australia but throughout the world. I’ve become well aware I’m not just a role model back home in Australia, in particular Indigenous people, but to Indigenous people throughout the world and that’s a blessing that basketball has given me.”
BASKETBALL PART OF MILLS DNA
Basketball is in Mills’ blood, it’s part of his DNA. His uncle Danny Morseu represented Australia and uncle Sammy Mills was the first Indigenous basketballer to attend the Australian Institute of Sport on a scholarship in 1982.
“I grew up playing with friends and family and bouncing a ball barefoot, on uneven ground on the dirt, on grass — back home for me that’s where it all started,’’ Mills says.
“Basketball has been a platform for me to use to give back. To let people know dreams, hopes, the unimaginable dreams can happen. Those out-of-context dreams you couldn’t picture would happen? They actually can happen.
“A little Indigenous boy playing on his grandfather’s hoop that he made for him up on Thursday Island as a not even one-year-old, those dreams can come true. You can play in the NBA, you can be an Olympian and represent your country, so although I don’t want to be known as just a basketballer, I do understand my platform has been able to inspire a lot of people just through basketball.
“This is why it’s important to follow through and execute on that inspiration that is already there. I’ve inspired you so what can I do now to put this into action and create pathways and opportunities for little boys and girls to get to that same path, not just basketball but any field. That’s the legacy.”
Mills, who made his debut for the Boomers in 2007, is the third Indigenous Australian to play for the national men’s team.
“The person before me was Uncle Danny, there was a 30-year gap. My biggest dream was to play alongside another Indigenous Australian and to share these same feelings but the second-best thing is to make sure there isn’t another 30-year gap,’’ he says.
“If I can help create these opportunities and pathways in their given fields that’s the true legacy right there, supporting Indigenous excellence. This is much bigger than me, this is for everyone back home that can be directly impacted and that’s the core right there.”
With COVID-19 forcing the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics to 2021, Mills and the Boomers must wait a little longer for their chance at claiming Australian men’s basketball’s first medal at the Games.
Mills will become a four-time Olympian, coming in behind the legendary Andrew Gaze who represented Australia at five campaigns. He is also highly fancied to do what Gaze did in Sydney in 2000 and be Australia’s flag bearer at the opening ceremony in Japan.
“Winning gold with the Boomers is at the forefront of my mind and has been since the last Olympics and even more so since the World Cup (where the team fell to Spain in the semi-final at last year’s tournament in China),’’ he says.
“I haven’t gone to bed at night without thinking about a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. It hasn’t been done before, we haven’t accomplished that yet so until we can put that around our necks we can’t sleep at night.
“That’s the driving force.”