The NBA season has been postponed since Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19 on March 11. Some players have been spending time working on personal projects while others have dropped diss tracks about the slam dunk competition. Langston Galloway and many of his peers, however, are taking online classes.
According to Sports Illustrated, more than 35 NBA players — including Andre Drummond, Lou Williams and Zach Collins — are taking classes through Yellowbrick. This online platform partners with top universities and brands to provide educational experiences about a variety of industries. This includes the sneaker business and the music industry. Additionally, the NBA has provided subscriptions to MasterClass, which provides hundreds of video lessons from experts in a wide array of industries.
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“We’re excited about the number of guys that are really utilizing this time in a serious way and thinking about their life outside of basketball,” Greg Taylor, the NBA’s senior vice president of player development, said. Focusing on what happens after basketball is over is something that wasn’t as prevalent in past years. However, Galloway said that many of his peers are striving to figure out what they want to do after their careers are over.
“We know that there are untold stories of our guys that really recognize that basketball is what they do, it’s not who they are,” Galloway said. “That they are actually committed to developing all kinds of skills and life experiences and really being the same life-long learners that everybody else is in the world.” Galloway was the NBA’s first known player to enroll in Yellowbrick, and he obtained a certificate of completion from New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology in “Sneaker Essentials.”
While the season has been postponed, Galloway has been spending the hiatus working on getting his “LG Kicks” brand off the ground. According to Sports Illustrated, Galloway’s wife, Sabrina, has been pushing him to work on his business plan during this time away from the court. His current deal with Q4 Sports expires at the end of the season, and will be a “sneaker free agent.”
Golden State Warriors guard Chasson Randle has also spent considerable time with Yellowbrick this offseason. He completed the “Fashion Essentials” course in three weeks, which taught him about sourcing materials and designing products. He has plans of launching a clothing brand, Volhard, in August.
“With this time I wanted to make sure that I was learning something,” Randle said. “Giving myself an opportunity to keep expanding, to keep growing.” Taking online classes during the postponed season helped him focus on other potential career paths instead of basketball.
