Kevin Durant

In a signed 2018 essay, Kevin Durant described himself as a Black man from Seat Pleasant, Maryland, a city on Washington's eastern edge inside Prince George's County. He recalled once seeing basketball chiefly as a way to leave his neighborhood. Looking back, he wrote about his changed understanding of home and his wish that, as a younger person, he had spoken more confidently about where he came from.

His NBA honors include the 2014 Most Valuable Player award and championships in 2017 and 2018. Durant's essay recalls bringing the championship trophy home the previous August. He described that visit as a chance to recognize the people who had supported him and to offer encouragement to young residents. Seat Pleasant honored him with a parade that same summer, a civic welcome for a player whose roots in the county run generations deep.

His foundation's work had already reached beyond his hometown. Through its "Build It and They Will Ball" initiative, the Kevin Durant Charity Foundation has renovated more than a dozen basketball courts around the country, an effort Durant described in a separate essay for The Players' Tribune.

The college-access project put his connection to the area on an institutional footing. In 2018, he pledged $10 million toward a College Track center in Prince George's County, the program's first in Maryland. The Durant Center opened in Suitland in January 2019. College Track identifies it as the home of its Prince George's County program since 2019, established through a founding partnership with the Kevin Durant Charity Foundation. Its local account names Suitland, Potomac and Charles Herbert Flowers high schools among the schools connected with the program.

The organization describes local staff working with students who aim to become the first in their families to graduate from college.

College Track's national model begins in ninth grade and extends through college graduation and entry into a career. Its published program includes college preparation, coaching during college, an alumni network and opportunities such as internships. The Durant Center opened the year after he wrote about home, and the county program still operates from Suitland.