Former Harlem Globetrotter continues changing lives through Choo Smith Youth Empowerment
(LAS VEGAS – July 11, 2026) – There are some people you interview.
Then there are people you have the privilege of watching over time.
Charles “Choo” Smith Jr. is one of those people.
For two decades, I’ve watched him pour himself into Baltimore’s young people—not for publicity, not for applause, but because that’s simply who he is.
I first met Choo at a gathering inside a beautiful home in Baltimore County.
Before I knew anything about his basketball résumé, before I learned he had traveled the world with the Original Harlem Globetrotters, before I knew he would one day become Chairman of the National Basketball Retired Players Association—now publicly known as Legends of Basketball—one thing stood out.
The man was impeccably dressed.
Head to toe.
Confident without being flashy.
Successful without needing to announce it.
That was my first impression.
My second impression came in a gymnasium.
Gone were the tailored clothes.
Instead, there were sweats.
Basketball shoes.
A whistle.
And dozens of young people looking to him not simply as a coach, but as someone they trusted.
Over the years, I’ve watched Choo in both worlds.
The public figure.
And the servant.
The second one impresses me far more.
One memory has stayed with me.
A young man in Choo’s program had lost his brother to gun violence.
Like far too many children growing up in Baltimore, tragedy could have become the defining chapter of his life.
Instead, basketball became part of his healing.
I watched that young man grow.
I watched him mature.
Eventually, I watched him announce the college he had chosen to attend.
What I’ll never forget, however, was the look on his mother’s face.
It wasn’t simply pride.
It was relief.
Hope.
Gratitude.
It was the face of a mother who understood that someone else had helped carry her son through one of the darkest periods of his life.
That’s easy to say.
It’s much harder to do.
Choo Smith has been doing exactly that for more than twenty years.
Changing trajectories.
One young person at a time.
Just last week, I wrote about James Mosher Baseball and men like William Neal and Tom White, who have devoted generations of their lives to neighborhood children.
As I reflected on Choo’s work, I realized I was looking at the very same tradition.
The tool is different.
One uses baseball.
The other uses basketball.
The mission is exactly the same.
Saving lives in Baltimore.
That is why I have always admired Choo.
His heart is pure.
I intentionally use that word because during a recent conversation, Choo paid me one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received as a journalist.
“You write from the purity of what it is,” he told me.
I appreciated the compliment.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized those same words describe him.
He coaches from the purity of what it is.
He mentors from the purity of what it is.
He serves from the purity of what it is.
I’ve watched him show up.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Youth camps.
Community events.
School visits.
Fundraisers.
Basketball clinics.
College signings.
Mentoring sessions.
Countless conversations with parents.
Long after the cameras leave.
Long after the applause ends.
That consistency tells you everything you need to know about a person’s character.
There is something else Choo represents.
Like so many gifted Baltimoreans before him, he had to leave home before many people fully appreciated what he had to offer.
Raised in Gilmor Homes, educated at Baltimore City College, and a graduate of the University of the District of Columbia, where he earned a degree in Computer Science and was later inducted into the university’s Athletic Hall of Fame, Choo carried Baltimore with him wherever he went.
Beginning in 1999, he joined the Original Harlem Globetrotters, touring all 50 states and 26 countries while earning a reputation as one of the game’s premier ballhandlers.
But basketball was never the destination.
It was the vehicle.
His real mission was always people.
That mission eventually became Choo Smith Youth Empowerment, an organization that has spent more than two decades helping young people develop academically, athletically, emotionally, and spiritually through Choo’s “4L” philosophy:
Love It. Learn It. Live It. Lead It.
Today, Choo serves as Chairman of the Board of the National Basketball Retired Players Association, representing some of the greatest names ever to play the game.
Listening to him talk about Oscar Robertson, Julius Erving, Isaiah Thomas, Dave Bing, Dominique Wilkins, Archie Clark, and so many others, what struck me wasn’t who he knows.
It was how deeply he respects those who came before him.
That humility explains why he has become such an effective leader.
Leadership, for Choo, has never been about titles.
It has always been about service.
During our conversation, he told me something else that has stayed with me.
At this year’s Choo Smith Youth Empowerment summer camp at Coppin State University, he asked his students two simple questions:
What do you fear?
What do you want to become?
The answers were heartbreaking.
Some feared losing their parents.
Some feared failure.
Some feared being killed while walking down the street.
Others feared homelessness.
When Choo asked whether anyone had ever asked them those questions before, nearly every child answered the same way.
No.
That, perhaps, explains his life’s work better than any résumé ever could.
He isn’t simply teaching basketball.
He’s teaching children that someone cares enough to ask.
I’m grateful Choo Smith Youth Empowerment exists.
I’m grateful thousands of Baltimore’s young people have benefited from his leadership.
And I’m grateful that, after representing Baltimore around the world, Choo continues investing in the city that first invested in him.
If there is anyone who deserves his place in American basketball history, it is my friend, Charles “Choo” Smith Jr.
True blue.
A1 from day one.
Straight out of Gilmor Homes.
And I say that with the deepest respect.
