Juaquin Hawkins (January 2011) | Interview By: Jose Ho-Guanipa

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Interview was conducted in January 2011
 

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Related Media & Links
Hawks Hoops Sports Foundatin

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Juaquin Hawkins // Exclusive Video Interview // Dubcnn

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Dubcnn Drop

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Napsac: What's going on y'all this is Eddie over here at Napsac, over here in the gym today for the BGA basketball camp. We up on Dubcnn. What's up Dubcnn. I'm about to introduce Juaquin Hawkins, what's up Juaquin, tell us about yourself.

Juaquin: What's up I'm Juaquin Hawkins I'm a professional basketball player. Played a little bit with the Lakers, Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks. 2003 I was the oldest rookie in the NBA, with the Houston Rockets. It's a pleasure to be here today with my man Eddie, Napsac. We trying to make it happen for the kids.

Napsac: What brought you out today?

Juaquin: For one you. I love to support the community, but definitely support anytime where I can go talk to the kids and my experiences playing professional basketball. I'm sure they might have their own aspirations of playing professionally. So I just try to give them a little insight for what it took to get me to the NBA, and beyond - I'm still playing professional basketball now. Just trying to be more of an inspirational motivator for them. Anytime I get a chance to got o the community and talk to the kids about trying to improve themselves basketball, life-wise, I'm definitely for that.

Napsac: So basically you also do some camps. How long have you been involved with your camps, and where do you hold those?

Juaquin: I've been having my own camps, it's called Hawk Hoops. Actually my foundation is called Hawk Hoops Sports Foundation. I've been doing my camps since I was in the NBA, 2003. So it's going on the 8th year. I normally do my camps in the summertime, but I'm starting to do it nationally and throughout the years. It's not just one time of the year I'm doing my camps. I do my camps all throughout LA. I live in Fontana right now so I do camps in LA to Orange County to Fontana. I actually did a camp last month in Dallas. We travel nationally to do my camps. It's really talking about the fundamentals of basketball and just life skills. And I have my own personal story, testimony that I had. I'm a stroke survivor. Two years ago I had a stroke, while I was playing pro ball. I'm also trying to teach and educate about stroke awareness. that's what I'm doing with my foundation and my camps. Just trying to do it for the kids, It's always about the kids.

Napsac: You heard that already from Juaquin Hawkins. As he's basically doing his thing with the youth and the kids, as Napsac is here trying to work and so forth with the Salvation Army, the Dubcnns, thank you Jose. And Hawkins too, we're trying to put something together, a little date. I think its January, at the Staples Center, maybe you could elaborate a little more on that, I'd appreciate it.

Juaquin: January 16th, from 6 11 I'll be having my own camps, it'll be a Hawk Hoops Sports Foundation event. We'll be doing a couple of things. For one we're going to invite about 50 kids from LA to play at the Staples Center. Everyone wants to go to games and se their favorite players, but I'm gonna give the opportunity to the kids to actually come and play on the staples center floor. I'll be posting that obviously on my facebook, probably in the newspaper as well. But I'm gonna give the opportunity to 50 kids come on the Staples Center floor. I'm gonna hold a camp, hopefully my man Eddie will be there to help out. We're gonna follow that with a celebrity game, so the community can come out and participate and really show their support to the kids and the celebrities. And we're gonna follow that with a concert, and have some pretty good artists that I'm talking to right now. I don't wanna say who they are now. bit its definitely gonna be a fabulous event. I'm doing this for three reasons. For one I'm trying to raise money for my foundation so I can do camps like that throughout the year for the kids, where they don't have to pay anything. Secondly I am an ambassador for the American Stroke Association, so I'm trying to raise money to help create more stroke awareness. The third reason I'm doing this is that I have a young lady I went to high school with and unfortunately - every time I think about this it has my heart pounding, she doesn't have any hands or feet and she needs prosthetics. So I'm gonna raise some money for her so she can buy prosthetics for her. It's a great story but I'll get into it later one. But those are three reasons that I'm doing this camp at the Staples Center, trying to raise money for these three entities.

Napsac: As you can see Juaquin got a lot of things going on and basically Napsac collaborating with him. Dubcnn. We wanna say thank you Salvation Army, the BGA Basketball Academy for having Juaquin out, for Jose coming out and for Dubcnn hosting this now. Look for things coming out in the future, you already heard it from the man himself, and now you got a visual of it, so once again thank you Dubcnn.