(KRON) — Oakland native and NBA All-Star player Damian Lillard returned to his roots Thursday at his alma mater Oakland High School to announce a $25,000 student scholarship.
Lillard of the Milwaukee Bucks announced the partnership with Portland State University for The PSU Damian Lillard Scholarship, which will help build a “pipeline for excellence” between nine East Bay California high schools and PSU. The star point guard was on the Portland Trailblazers from 2012 to 2023.
The scholarship amount of $25,000 per year is meant to help reduce the costs associated with out-of-state tuition.
Lillard said it’s all part of his personal mission to keep “reaching back and being able to touch and help as many as I can.”
“This scholarship is extremely important to me, it’s even more important to come and do this announcement at Oakland High,” Lillard told the packed auditorium of 300-plus students and staff. “It’s always love for me for Oakland, being from Oakland and doing as much as I can for Oakland,”
For the 2025-26 school year, more than two dozen Damian Lillard Scholar-eligible students have applied to Portland State, and 15 have been admitted so far.
“I know hard it is on parents, I know how hard it is on you guys as kids,” said Lillard. “I caught the bus to school every day. I’ve seen a lot, I was around a lot. I could’ve easily been influenced by a lot. I know how much something like this can help, having this type of opportunity. I also grew up with a lot of people — middle school, high school — that stayed in Oakland after that, never got the opportunity to experience anything different or go and see other things so they can be inspired to do other things and be around people that come from different backgrounds and had different experiences. That’s what I’ve been fortunate enough to experience even before making the NBA and I know how important that was for me to continue to grow as a young man.”
Six Oakland High School students who applied for the scholarship joined Lillard on-stage during the announcement.
(KRON) — Oakland native and NBA All-Star player Damian Lillard returned to his roots Thursday at his alma mater Oakland High School to announce a $25,000 student scholarship. Lillard of the Milwaukee Bucks announced the partnership with Portland State University for The PSU Damian Lillard Scholarship, which will help build a “pipeline for excellence” between […]
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