Filed under: Basketball
The always entertaining L.A. Laker Ron Artest, who just won his first NBA championship, plans on raffling off his ring from last season's title to raise money for mental health counseling in schools.
Interestingly enough, Artest is not worried about giving up his coveted ring, because he is sure that there will be more coming his way down the pike. Every baller dreams about winning an NBA championship ring, and Artest says that rather than wearing or showcasing his ring in his living room, his ring would serve a better purpose by helping kids who are in need of school counseling:
"I think it'll be more important to give back to something I believe in, which is providing kids with someone to talk to because it's so expensive. I pay for parenting counseling, marriage counseling and anger management, and it's very expensive. This will be for children of all demographics, rich or poor -- preferably [sic] the rich can pay for their own psychologists -- but it'll be a great way to help kids who don't know where they're going in their life at this point," he told NBA News.
So far, the championship ring has fetched offers from celebs and investors who have gone as high as $100,000 to make the ring their own. Artest is thinking about holding a raffle auction, so that folks from around the globe would have an opportunity to end up with the ring. The raffle ticket prices would be somewhere around $1 to $3, but the baller is still trying to iron out the details.
One of the league's premier players, Artest has made no secret of the fact that he relies heavily on the guidance that his psychiatrist gives him. As a matter of fact, the man who is known for his wild antics on and off the court, thanked his psychiatrist profusely, during a post-game interview for helping him stay relaxed during last season's championships:
"My psychiatrist, she really helped me relax a lot. Thank you so much. It's so difficult to play...so much commotion going on in the playoffs. She wanted me to relax. Thank you so much."
The man whom many refer to as "crazy" has even helped Rep. Grace Napolitano push for the passage of the Mental Health in Schools Act, which would provide funding for schools across the country to set up mental health programs for students.
Artest is determined to help kids get the counseling they need in schools because it was something that was only available to him at age 13 for a very short time because funding dried up.
Meanwhile, it's full speed ahead for the newly crowned mental health advocate; training camp for the Lakers starts on October 2. Artest feels that the team will be at peak performance this season. but the forward still needs a little work in the "going off on tangents area":
"We're hungry. I know I am, as much as anybody else is. And you know Kobe is. Kobe's after something, I don't even know what it is. I think he's after stardom on Pluto or something," Artest told NBA News. "Pluto's not even a planet no more, which I'm very disturbed about. I grew up when Pluto was a planet. Now, I'm 25, I turn around and Pluto's no longer a planet. I'm going to elbow that guy in the nose. I love Pluto. Everybody loves Pluto. There's a dog named Pluto in the cartoons. I don't know how we got on that subject. We've got to see if we can get Pluto back."