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This NBA star always dreamed of being a teacher. So students in Brooklyn got the substitute teacher of a lifetime.
For most basketball players, making it to the NBA is the ultimate dream. But Brooklyn Nets star Mikal Bridges has another dream as well.
“My other dream was being a second grade teacher,” the small forward told CBS News. “I think just helping kids has always been a big thing of mine.”
Why second grade? “Because I loved second grade when I was young,” he said. “I feel like that was one of the years I really remember. Just having a great year. I had a great teacher named Ms. Porter and just I feel like I always loved second grade.”
Growing up in Philadelphia, Bridges was inspired by Ms. Porter to follow that dream. He got to do that this month at PS 134 in Brooklyn, where he worked as a teacher for the day.
The Nets got in around 1:30 a.m. the night before, after beating the Cleveland Cavaliers 120-101. The player had a long night, but he was committed to teaching those kids.
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“Their energy was just like, what got me going so fast. They got me excited,” Bridges said.
He started the day playing basketball in gym class with fourth graders. The 6’6” player, who was drafted to the NBA in 2018, organized a game of knockout for the kids and answered their questions.
One student had a question that surprised him: “How do you incorporate your personal life with your professional life?”
“I like that [question],” he said. “It’s not that bad, actually. I think the biggest thing is time. In season, you don’t have that much time because I travel a lot. But I’ve been in it about for six years now, so I found a good balance hanging out with friends and relaxing and preparing for the games.”
Her next question: If your family comes your games, do they get free tickets? His answer: Yes.
“Why didn’t you be a teacher if you wanted to be?” another student asked.
“Because of basketball. But basketball doesn’t go forever,” he said. “This is just the first part of my journey, so I think teacher is going to come up next. Trying to do both.”
After gym, he went to first grade music class. “They were teaching me on the little xylophone. I didn’t know what I was doing … what the teacher was teaching,” he said. “The kid next to me was pointing at the board like, ‘Follow that, follow that.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, ok. That makes sense.'”
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Many of the kids seized the opportunity to tell Bridges they too play basketball. On the playground at recess, they marveled at how tall he was and one stopped their ball game to ask Bridges for a hug.
At lunch, he answered the first graders’ riddles. And then, he taught his favorite class — math. That’s where, perhaps, his inclination for teaching others began.
“Math came easy to me. I feel like I was probably one of the smartest math kids in our class,” he said, adding that when he was a kid, he’d help other students. “I’ll try to teach them. Like, ‘Oh, this is how I learned it and it’s pretty simple to me this way. Just think of this way.'”
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The kids couldn’t get enough of their temporary teacher, Mr. Bridges. And while meeting an NBA star is a kid’s dream, meeting these students fulfilled a dream for him.
“A lot of days, we’re in school,” he said. “And we’re with our teachers and I think they just don’t get enough credit. Because we’re around them a lot, you know what I’m saying. And they help us become better people every day. And I think some are overlooked a little bit.”
Bridges says he hopes to become a teacher, or even a principal, after the NBA.
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Long before comic book characters dominated movie screens, actor Christopher Reeve made the world believes in superheroes with the 1978 classic “Superman.”
Reeve died in 2004, nearly a decade after an accident re-shaped his life. “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” is using interviews with family and friends and never-before-seen home videos to explore his real-life heroism.
Reeve started his career on the stage, studying at the prestigious Juilliard School and living with comedian Robin Williams. The pair had a friendship that was “more like a brotherhood,” said Reeve’s son Matthew. Reeve was in awe of Williams’ energy and versatility, Matthew Reeve said, but audiences quickly clued into Reeve’s own star power when he took on the role of the Man of Steel.
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To his children, though, he “was just dad,” Matthew Reeve said. The documentary explores how Matthew Reeve and his sister Alexandra Reeve Givens grew up watching their dad take the stage as Superman. “Super/Man” also reveals their heartbreak over their parents’ breakup and the joy they found when Reeve re-married. He tied the knot with Dana Reeve in 1992, and the pair welcomed another child, William Reeve, later that year.
“Dana was sunshine,” Alexandra Reeve Givens recalled. “She just brought joy with her wherever she was and could find it even in the darkest moments.”
Those dark moments came suddenly, when in 1995, a near-fatal horseback riding accident left Reeve paralyzed from the neck down. The documentary allows viewers to see, for the first time, what went on out of the public’s view. Reeve can be heard talking about how he “ruined (his) life and everybody else’s,” but in a touching moment, old friend Robin Williams is seen visiting him in the hospital.
“Robin showed him ‘Hey, you’re still you,'” Alexandra Reeve Givens said. “‘You still have this foundation of friendship and people around you, who adore you. And you’re going to find those fun moments in life again.'”
That support from friends and family re-ignited Reeve’s legacy of activism. He made appearances at the Democratic National Convention and the 68th Academy Awards in 1996, about a year after the accident. Matthew Reeve said watching his father address his industry peers at the Oscars was “one of (his) most proud moments.”
“It was just a production for him to get out of bed every morning, let alone get across the country and go out in public for the first time,” Matthew Reeve said. “It was a big deal. It was a big deal to him, but it was also a big deal to the entire disability community. We stayed up in London till like three in the morning to watch that live. It’s a fond memory.”
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Reeve also went on to launch what would become the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which is dedicated to advancing research into spiral cord injury and help individuals and families impacted by paralysis. It was his dad’s mission to find a cure, Matthew Reeve said, while his stepmother wanted to focus on improving the lives of paralyzed people and their families. The foundation and Reeve’s platform helped bring unprecedented attention and funding to spinal cord injury research.
Reeve even kept acting and realized his lifelong dream of directing with the 1997 HBO movie “In the Gloaming.” Reeve died in 2004 from heart failure at 52.
“There is a huge amount of great actors and actresses out there, where their filmography might be amazing and what they achieve on a cultural level might be amazing, but have they actually achieved anything really as a human that moves the needle for our society?” said filmmaker Ian Bonhote, who made the documentary with Peter Ettedgui. “And Chris has done both things.”
“Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” will open in theaters on Friday, Oct. 11.
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