BERLIN — The Albert Gutzmann School is on the northwest side of Berlin, a series of weathered buildings next to a city park and across the street from a furniture store in Germany's capital city.
Reporting on the European basketball academies pumping out NBA talent led me this winter to the school. Written in German on one of the outside walls of the gym is a quote attributed to Michael Jordan: "If you quit once it becomes a habit. Never quit."
What was seen and heard on a tour, however, was reminiscent of the mission LeBron James launched in 2011 to teach disadvantaged children to read. It's a mission that grew into a public sch ool James opened in 2018, I Promise School, and a job training program for adults that includes the first Starbucks of its kind.
Something similar is happening on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Albert Gutzmann School, opened in 1972, is one of four elementary schools in Berlin with full sponsorship from Alba Berlin, the city's pro basketball team that plays in the EuroLeague. Alba has dozens of employees in those schools providing counseling, sports coaching, after-school learning and a connection for the students (and their families) to a pro team that makes them want to stay engaged at school. Alba Berlin is the only basketball franchise in Germany, if not the whole EuroLeague, this involved in its local school system.
About 500 children in grades one through six attend Albert Gutzmann, the neighborhoo d school for the Gesundbrunnen area of Berlin — a working-class and multicultural section of the city. According to one school official, roughly 98 percent of the children do not speak German when they enroll. That number sounded high, but the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has reported that 95 percent of the students are the sons and daughters of immigrants. Sixty percent of those families receive German welfare payments. The school is considered a "schwache Schulen," or "problem school," because of the socioeconomic challenges its students face, which can lead to problems learning, attending school, behaving and dropping out.
These are the precise difficulties facing many students James tries to help.
The I Promise School receives the same public funding the other Akron, Ohio, public schools receive. The LeBron James Family Foundation has donated millions to the school, but those funds are raised by the foundation and don't necessarily come out of James' pocket. Dedicated staff work hand in hand with education experts, and state and Akron school officials design the curriculum, with input from college professors.
There is no connection between James and Alba Berlin. One entity didn't design its educational program based on the other. But the similarities are unmistakable.
As a franchise, Alba Berlin does not have the same global footprint as LeBron, whose salary with the Lakers this season ($50 million) is three times the size of Alba's team budget for the 2024-25 season. But it is an enormously popular team in the city, with alums like current Orlando Magic standouts Franz and Moe Wagner.
Last summer, Alba donated a new, outdoor basketball court to Albert Gutzmann. Udo Meinecke, the Albert Gutzmann principal since 2011, said there were fights every day at recess when h e first started the job. Now, he says, "There are never fights. When there are breaks in class, the court is packed. Everyone is playing."
There are 30 Alba employees who work full-time at Albert Gutzmann. They are social workers by trade, but many of them also are certified basketball coaches. They wear T-shirts, hoodies, shorts and sweatpants with the basketball team's logo. They teach children how to cook. They take students and their families to Alba EuroLeague games for free, and occasionally, they host Alba players who come to Albert Gutzmann to visit with students.
One of these social workers, Joshua Leonardy, 25, of Berlin, said when he takes the children to Alba games and they see the logo on the players' uniforms and the same logo on his shirt, "they see the connection."
"We learn that it's not just about our program, what they can do here, but more about the relationships they have with us, with people here and also with other kids," Le onardy said. "A lot of those kids get to know their classmates in a different setting. They do fun things together and grow strong connections over cooking, for example. And through that, friendships can grow. I think that has an impact on the kids coming to school, because they know there's a place that they like here, and there's people that I like and people that I trust. Whenever they have problems with whoever or whatever, they know they can come to us and talk to us about it."
The idea for Alba to get into Berlin's schools came from Henning Harnisch, a famous German player whose teams won nine consecutive national championships, the last two for Alba. He retired from playing at age 30 and studied sociology at Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, and he returned to Alba with the idea of introducing basketball to every school in Berlin.
"He's kind of a spiritus rector — or, if you need an English word, driving force — of the, well, I was gonna say proje ct, but project means there is an end point and we hope this is everlasting," said Marco Baldi, vice president and CEO of Alba Berlin. "We followed his ideas, developed them, and I think it paid off."
Not only is Alba in four Berlin schools all day, but it works, albeit less frequently, with 100 schools in the district. The youth basketball league in the city is run by Alba Berlin. Their social workers, including the ones who work in the schools all day, coach the teams in the citywide league, recruiting, encouraging, sometimes daring children to come play.
"My brother was just in PE class basically, and they said you're probably going to be tall, why don't you come the one time (to an Alba youth league game)," said Franz Wagner, the Orlando star whose brother Moe also plays for the Magic. Franz is four years younger than his brother and started playing for Alba when he was 7.
"I went to (Moe's) game, so that's how I started," Wagner said. " We were soccer players."
There is a business reason for Alba to be involved in the schools. Like all of the continent's top pro clubs, Alba has its own academy and has produced 70 pro players for either its own pro team, other clubs in Europe or the NBA. Unlike many powerhouse academies in places such as Madrid, Paris or Belgrade, Alba does not recruit outside of Berlin for talent. It wants to introduce basketball to every student in the city, monitor them as they play in youth leagues and project who will be good enough to join its academy as teenagers.
An overwhelming majority of the children who pass through Alba don't wind up playing professionally, which is why the program is a social service, first and foremost, and receives 1.5 million euros from the local government each year to pay for the social workers. (For comparison's sake, LeBron's I Promise School also receives tax dollars through Akron Public Schools.)
"It fits perfectly to the characte r of our city," Baldi said. "I mean, it's a lot of people coming from somewhere and trying to find themselves, not urgently trying to build their career, but to find out what possibilities life gives. This is a little bit, I would say … the Berlin flavor.
"It's also fulfilling because it's not only the great talents coming out — all the 70 players we have developed into professionals — but also a lot of young people who feel an identification with us and they feel seen. This is the other part: A lot of people through sport find other people. They meet, they play together, they join groups and develop friends. We bring people together, and I think this is the best of what sports can do to bring people together."
What makes these programs successful, whether they are in Berlin or Akron, is leverage, the benefactor using their popularity to engage children at the school and business partners to pitch in.
For instance, James secured college scholars hips for anyone who graduates from an Akron high school and attended either his school (grades one through eight) or was a member of his broader mentoring program. The scholarships were valued at $42 million at the time, but the universities pay those costs, not James. His deep portfolio of corporate conglomerates as marketing partners contribute not only money but also time and goods. Students over the years might have received Nike clothing or an iPad. Parents could've gotten a Samsung flat-screen TV or groceries or tips on how to deposit and manage money or find a safe space in a domestic violence situation.
Imagine if the New York Knicks or Las Vegas Raiders or St. Louis Cardinals or Pittsburgh Penguins did something like this at nearby schools. Or if every starting pitcher in every rotation in the big leagues, every quarterback and every point guard adopted a school and leveraged their endorsement deals and business partners into providing the kinds of support families stuck in the cyclical grip of poverty need.
Earlier this year, the Brooklyn Nets announced they were hosting for one day 120 students who attend public and charter schools in the borough at Barclays Center for some hands-on science, technology, engineering and math stations, with surprise appearances from players Cam Johnson and Ziaire Williams.
The Nets designed a basketball-based STEM curriculum for students in Brooklyn, with a focus "to help close the diversity gap in STEM." According to the team, the Nets' STEM curriculum is used by 41 teachers across Brooklyn schools, and it's the only program of its kind for an NBA team.
That's a start.
When it comes to reaching children in inner cities, there are hurdles they face that those who are more fortunate can barely imagine, things that could get in the way of anyone learning to read or write or do math. Students who attend LeBron's school start their days at the building with a hot breakfast; otherwise, some of them might not eat at all.
James' school was roundly criticized two years ago when it was made public that no student in the school's first class (they enrolled as fourth graders in 2018) had passed the math portion of Ohio's proficiency standardized test. When LeBron's mentoring program — the precursor to I Promise — really started to take off, upon his return to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2014, the students in it saw improved reading scores. The first school year of I Promise produced tremendous results. But then COVID-19 hit, and students didn't have access to computers to engage in online learning. There was high turnover in the school's teaching staff and with school leadership. But I Promise has had the same principal now for two years, and students performed well enough last year to be removed from Ohio's watch list for underperforming schools.
If the test scores for LeBron's students never reach proficiency, it would still be unfair to deem what happens there as a failure. The children receive food and counseling and safety they otherwise wouldn't receive at a larger, busier school. They get free dental and vision screenings, as well as access to medicine. Their parents receive the same benefits.
All of them also get to feel seen by and connected to one of the world's greatest athletes — providing them an invaluable sense of belonging that fosters something so critical to human existence as, well, hope.
In Berlin, the same sensations go out to the children and families serviced by the schools where Alba, the city's pro basketball team, has a steady, daily presence.
Why couldn't we have more of this in America?
(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; top photos: Allison Farrand, Picture Alliance, Ullstien Bild, Jan Phillip Burrmann / Getty Images)
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