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Ray Allen

Using a Sonics playbook as an example, Allen talked to the group about the importance of being able to read a scouting report and the consequences of not understanding what you’re reading. “You will be fined if you don’t know what is in this,” he said.

Allen was joined by Ashley Robinson of the Seattle Storm for the “Read to Achieve” event that highlighted Black History. The two basketball stars shared with those in attendance their passion for reading and talked about their favorite books: Allen cited Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go! as a childhood favorite and calls The Alchemist a “must-read”; Robinson drew a lot of “me too” with her picks of Charlotte’s Web and Change the Way You See Everything.

“Events like this are always fun for me,” Robinson said afterwards. “‘Read to Achieve’ is so important. It is such a good message for the kids to hear.”

Allen and Robinson were narrators for a piece based on the book I Dream A World. The presentation included photos of some influential African-American women whose stories where told through four youth performers from Seattle’s Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center. Among the women highlighted in the story were Ruby Dee, Marion Anderson, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King and Maya Angelou.

After the story was complete, Allen and Robinson each posed three questions about the story to the children in attendance. A correct answer resulted in a prize from the Sonics & Storm.

Then it was the students’ turn to ask the questions, and they weren’t shy.

To Allen: “Do you have a best friend on the team?”

“All of them are my best friend,” he answered, “On our team, and most teams, there are 12 players. We all have to get along. We’re all different, but we have to learn to work together.

“That applies to students and a classroom. Everybody needs to work together.”

The last question, aimed at the 6-4 Robinson, who was wearing a three-inch heel that made her tower over the 6-5 Allen, drew laughter from everybody in the center.

“Can you dunk on Ray Allen?”

“She probably could,” Allen answered.

With that, Allen and Robinson exited to a back room to answer questions from various media outlets. Each talked about their early reading memories, using anecdotes from elementary school to tell the story.

For Robinson, it was being able to learn about Wilma Rudolph and portray the track star in a school skit; for Allen, it was the excitement of winning four books as a second-grader in a school-wide contest by correctly guessing the number of balls (175) in a jar stationed in the library.

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