Kevin Durant (b. 1988)
Filed under the name Kevin · October 23, 2026
Kevin Durant donated $10 million to fund a college access program for kids in his hometown of Prince George's County, Maryland, which is exactly the kind of investment I spent 38 years wishing more people with means understood the value of — not a scholarship for one lucky kid, but a whole program built to help many kids actually reach college in the first place. I taught plenty of bright students over the years who had every bit as much potential as anybody else, and what they lacked wasn't ability, it was access — someone believing it was worth investing real money in getting them there. Durant's an NBA superstar, obviously a different world from a rural county paper columnist, but the instinct behind that donation is the same one I tried to build in my own students: remembering where you came from and making the road a little easier for the ones coming up behind you. He's been praised for quiet, sustained philanthropy, and quiet and sustained is exactly the kind that lasts.