Draymond Green Offers Profound Takeaway After Tragic Mass Shooting At Michigan State University

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Draymond Green is one of the Michigan State University’s most famous alumni.

Green, a four-time NBA Champion and four-time NBA All-Star, was a consensus All-American for the Spartans in 2012 and has his number retired by the university.

So it’s understandable that Monday night’s tragic mass shooting had a profound effect on the Golden State Warriors start.

Green opened up about the incident and how it affected him on the most-recent episode of his podcast, the Draymond Green Show.

“We’ve been having a ton of these mass shootings in America and quite frankly, you’re becoming quite numb to it,” he said.” “You see them, and it’s like, there goes another one. There goes another. It’s sad to know as a people that’s where we are. But that’s the reality. That we just keep having these things over and over again. And you’re numb to it until you’re not. You’re numb to it until it hits close to home, like me [Monday night].”

Green then went on to explain how East Lansing, where Michigan State is located, always represented somewhere safe to and for him.

“Quite honestly, and not to make the moment about myself, but growing up in Saginaw, Michigan, when I went to Michigan State, I thought I made it out,” Green said. “Like, for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like I had to look over my shoulder when I was walking around — that leaving the house and making it back home wasn’t a threat.”

He added that for those current students who come from similar backgrounds as he does, they may not longer feel like the school is an escape.

“That feeling has been rocked a bit,” Green said. “Knowing that that kid from Saginaw, or Detroit, or Pontiac, or Flint, or you name it — that feeling is compromised from that. That hurts me. That hurts because as kids, you grow up in those environments and your main goal is to get out of there, so you don’t have to deal with that. So you don’t have to have those same worries. So you don’t have to face those same dangers on the daily.

“To know that you go to a place like Michigan State and to have that worry again, that’s brutal. That’s scary.”

His comments are both tragic and true, and it was easy to see how the incident has affected him personally.