Rockford, IL is not a nice place to grow up. Unemployment, poverty, and crime are high, and most growing up there don't see a way out of where they're at. Fred wants to do his part to change that.
He's become a role model for teens in Rockford to work hard and try to get into college:
http://www.mystateline.com/fulltext-sports/d/story/young-athletes-in-rockford-are-looking-up-to-fred/40162/86laRzh5XEaqL9G1seZ17Q
He's being mentioned as part of the reason Rockford is getting better athletic facilities:
http://www.mystateline.com/fulltext-sports/d/story/new-field-houses-at-the-rockford-high-schools-shou/14601/NvY9ujo3akOkddrTw4LkJA
To top it all off, he gave the commencement address at his HS's graduation ceremony:
http://www.kansas.com/2014/05/31/3485099/wsu-notes-vanvleet-returns-home.html
Here's part of Fred's commencement address:
“I want you to go out and use this as a platform,” he said. “They’re always telling us Rockford is a miserable place to live, not a lot of talent coming out of Rockford. You can live up to it and make it worse, or you can change it and make it better. The power of change starts with choices.”
Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2014/05/31/348509 ... rylink=cpy
Pretty heady stuff for a 20-year old college sophomore. In addition to being a fairly salty PG, Fred is turning out to be one the best people I've encountered in a long time.
He's just an amazing story for a guy whose Dad was murdered in a drug deal when Fred was something like 5. Fred's stepdad was a policeman and insisted on living on the mean streets he was patrolling, and insisted on his kids working their butts off to make sure they could off of those streets.
My hat is off to Fred's stepdad. That man did one outstanding job of raising a son.
