The Shelter That Saved a Future NBA Forward

Taurean Prince's childhood included a stretch with no home. When he was about 12, he and his father stayed at a Salvation Army shelter in San Angelo, Texas. According to NBC Sports Philadelphia, their room had two beds and a pair of lamps, with a communal bathroom shared by more than fifteen people, and the doors locked at 10 p.m. On some nights they slept outside against a wall.

Prince kept the experience to himself. He has said that he never told his mother, not once. In eighth grade, the family of a friend, the Thompsons, took him in so that he could stay at his school. The friend's father later said he had not known Prince's family had been homeless.

Prince later told CBS News Texas that the shelter definitely saved his life. He also recalled that when he and his father went to enrol, they were not given a spot, and he says that left him wondering what might have happened.

He returned to San Antonio to live with his mother and attended Earl Warren High School, where he began playing varsity basketball as a sophomore. In college he played four seasons at Baylor University and became a standout in the Big 12 conference. He was a first-round NBA pick and began his professional career with the Atlanta Hawks in 2016. By 2022 he had played for four teams and was with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Prince has not forgotten where he stayed. In 2022 he visited a Salvation Army social service center in Dallas, where he and the staff handed out food, water and hygiene products, and he gave away sneakers. He told the people there to keep pushing.