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Video: Celtics' Jaylen Brown Trains with 78-Year-Old Grandfather During Hiatus
May 19, 2020
Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown has enlisted the help of his grandfather to keep him in shape as the NBA season remains on hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe shared a video of Willie Brown timing his grandson running down a street in Boston:
Per Himmelsbach's accompanying article, the 78-year-old Brown did a tour of Vietnam in 1963 as a member of the Marines and worked as a truck driver to support himself as he tried to carve out a career as a professional boxer.
"I always knew where the gym was," Willie said. "At that time, it didn't take that much to find out who is who, so I kept running from city to city. Once in the '70s I sparred with Joe Frazier in Philadelphia, and he hit me with a left hook down below, and it kept me on the floor of my hotel room for three days."
Jaylen told Himmelsbach he "needed" his grandfather to help him train: "But on the other side of that, he's like, 'OK, we're going to train then.' We've been training hard and a lot. On one hand, it's great that he's comfortable being here, but on the other he's making me work my [butt] off."
There's still no telling if—or when—the NBA will finish the 2019-20 season. ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported last week that owners and executives were optimistic about resuming the season following a virtual meeting with commissioner Adam Silver.
If the Celtics play again soon, Brown might be one of the few players who could legitimately claim to be in the best shape of his life after a multi-month hiatus, thanks to his grandfather.
