Work Ethic/FreeGame

Jaylen Brown's grandfather drove a truck across America so he could find the gyms and offer himself up as a sparring partner for heavyweight champions. Willie Brown says the list includes Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and Sonny Liston. He was a Marine first. He served a tour in Vietnam in 1963. He wanted to fight for a living and did not believe it would feed a family, so he took the truck job and worked the route around it. "I always knew where the gym was," he 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," Willie said, "and it kept me on the floor of my hotel room for three days." He got older. He was living by himself in Atlanta. In March of 2020, Jaylen brought him to Boston, and he never mentioned the virus. He told his grandfather he needed a trainer and that Willie was the best man for the job. "We said we needed him to help me train and get back ready for the season," Jaylen said, "so he could feel comfortable sticking around here." Willie was 78. He started knocking on his grandson's bedroom door at 7:30 in the morning. He held the pads. He had an NBA All-Star jumping rope and sprinting up and down the street carrying five pound weights. "He has me doing a lot of things I've never done before," Jaylen said. "It's the old way of training. Everything he does is kind of a throwback, but it's good." Jaylen's mother Mechalle watched the two of them go at it every morning. "We didn't want this quarantine, but sometimes things pull you together," she said. Then, right before the league went down to Florida for the bubble, Willie was diagnosed with cancer. He did not want to start chemotherapy. Jaylen thought about skipping the restart entirely. Instead he made him a deal. "I'm going to go down there and play, but you got to play, too." "He liked the sound of that, and he signed up." Jaylen went to Florida. Willie started treatment. In October of that year Jaylen sat down on television and talked about him. "He's like a superhero," he said. "He's had a heart attack, cancer, COVID, all at the same time and has beat it all." By the following January, Willie was 79 and still running his grandson's workouts. "He's definitely the best trainer I've had, in terms of pushing me," Jaylen said. "No excuses, no limits." "He's never been stagnant, and I got that from him." The man Joe Frazier put on a hotel room floor in Philadelphia has a grandson who plays in Philadelphia now.