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Charles Barkley is following through on a promise he made to donate $1 million to St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans after two young women cracked a seemingly “impossible” math problem.
Nola.com reports that Barkley paid the first 10, $100,000 installments to the school after former students Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson used trigonometry to prove the Pythagorean Theorem, something that had never been done before.
Several people previously proved the theory. But Jackson and Johnson became the first do so using trigonometry.
“For two months we worked together nonstop — during school, after school, at home, at lunch,” Johnson told the Times-Picayune last year. “We had lots of Zoom meetings. Actually, during Mardi Gras break we were still working by Zoom.”
Charles Barkley Amazed After Pair Of New Orleans Girls Prove Pythagorean Theorem
Barkley learned about Jackson and Johnson while watching an episode of “60 Minutes” on CBS.
“These beautiful Black women, man, they’re just the high achievers,” he told AL.com in May. “A lot is demanded of everybody at the school—high excellence. And these two young Black women did something in mathematics that was incredible. It just inspired me.”
At the same time, Barkley pledged $1 million to women’s athletics at his alma mater, Auburn University.
“I just want to make sure I always take care of the women at Auburn because I worry about them more than anything during this NIL movement,” he said. “Everybody’s worried about football and basketball. I just want to make sure the women know I’ve got a lot of love and appreciation for them.”
Ironically, neither Jackson nor Johnson are actually pursing an education in math.
Johnson studies environmental engineering at LSU, while Jackson attends Xavier University in New Orleans on a full scholarship to its pharmacy school.
Barkley, meanwhile, plans to support the school long-term. He plans to pay St. Mary’s $100,000 each year for the next decade.
And given the massive contract he signed with TNT just last year, this may well be a sign of things to come from the Basketball Hall of Fame member.