The Milwaukee Bucks and league MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo entered a Wisconsin prison facility with a lot more at stake than just basketball. They came to listen to the voices and stories of the incarcerated.
Organized by film producer Scott Budnick and the NBA’s Play For Justice initiative, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes joined members of the Bucks organization inside the Racine Correctional Institution Dec. 17.
“The whole point is to humanize the people behind bars,” said Budnick, founder of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) and producer of Just Mercy. “That’s how we get the voters and legislators to change laws.
“It was great to see the governor suit up and play ball with the men in prison.”
Gathering first in a prisoner visiting room, everyone sat in a healing circle with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals for a heartfelt discussion on criminal justice, prison life, rehabilitation and hope.
“Just coming here, listening to them, going through what they have to say and listening to the pain they have—it’s amazing,” said Antetokounmpo in a television interview with WTMJ Milwaukee.
After sharing their personal stories, participants formed teams to play a scrimmage game coached by Antetokounmpo and his Bucks teammates Sterling Brown, Pat Connaughton, George Hill, Kyle Korver and D. J. Wilson.
The NBA players got to turn the tables and draw up plays for their own Head Coach Mike Budenholzer, who played on the all-inclusive squads along with other Bucks coaching staff.
“We care about you,” Budenholzer said to Racine’s incarcerated community. “We’re waiting for you when you get out,” reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Gov. Evers said the Play For Justice event “shines a light around issues of criminal justice reform.”
One participant, Tommy Brown, was about to be released from Racine three days later, after spending almost 30 years behind bars for an armed robbery conviction.
“It will be strange, almost like stepping out of a spaceship to a new dimension,” he said.
Another man, Donald Jackson, entered the criminal system at age 12. “Today I’m thankful,” he said to everyone around him in the circle. “I see a lot of idols here. Man, it’s overpowering.”
Antetokounmpo opened up about his own misdeeds as a youth, things he admitted he was not proud of. He shared insight into his own family history and memories of his late father.
“Even when you’re still in here, you want to do better,” said Antetokounmpo.
Wesley Griffin won’t be released for several more years, but he felt moved by Antetokounmpo’s words. “We’re human beings, and everyone makes mistakes,” said Griffin.
“Sitting down in a circle like this, you stop judging. You start seeing how it is,” said NBA champion Korver, before speaking directly to one man, who revealed his own painful struggles with incarceration.
“I’m sorry, brother. I’m sorry,” Korver told him. “I don’t know what the answer is. We have to keep sharing our stories.”
Hill, another NBA champ, told the circle about his own rough childhood on the streets of Indianapolis before saying, “You’re not a monster. You’re a human. You were going down the wrong path at the wrong time.”
“I’m sorry, brother. I’m sorry,” Korver told him. “I don’t know what the answer is. We have to keep sharing our stories.”
Many of the participants talked about the aspects of outside life that their incarceration deprived them of—missed holidays with their families, graduations they couldn’t attend, children they couldn’t watch grow up.
John Casper shared how his son had asked him, “When are you coming home?”
“I don’t have an answer to that,” said Casper.
“For me it has always been important to see the good in people,” said guard Connaughton. “I believe in second chances.”
Bucks guard Brown described the problems with his arrest in January 2018 that resulted in his current lawsuit against the city of Milwaukee for excessive use of force and civil rights violations.
“A lot of work needs to be done with the criminal justice system,” said Brown. “I need to do my part.”
Play For Justice also sponsored events where the Sacramento Kings entered Folsom State Prison and where the Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron James welcomed youth offenders from the Ventura Correctional Facility into their practice gym.
Budnick said he has high hopes to bring WNBA organizations and Play For Justice to a women’s facility in California.
One formerly incarcerated individual, Jacob Brevard, participated in both the Folsom and Racine dialogues.
“This is a university,” he said. “You can learn a lot here.”
Budnick launched Play For Justice in partnership with the Represent Justice Campaign and the film Just Mercy. The movie stars Jamie Foxx in the true story of a wrongfully convicted innocent man on Alabama’s Death Row.
Michael B. Jordan and Brie Larson co-star as Bryan Stevenson and Eva Ainsley, the legal team that worked to free Just Mercy’s real-life protagonist, Walter McMillian.
“It’s going great right now,” said Budnick in late January when Just Mercy was in its third week of national release. “It’s all about showing folks the injustice in the criminal justice system.
“Governors, district attorneys—we’re making sure all kinds of prosecutors and stakeholders see this film.”