Collegiate basketball champion Angel Reese has not just been getting the bag since her LSU Tigers captured the title in April, she has been giving some of it back.
Arguably the most recognizable name in college athletics today, the Bayou Barbie has announced that she is paying the tuition of her alma mater’s girls’ basketball team for the 2023-24 season.
Reese has reportedly donated $12,000 to her old high school, Saint Frances Academy in Baltimore, Maryland to cover a year’s worth of tuition for the school’s current women’s basketball team. This is the same fund from which Reese and her teammates were able to attend school for free when she was there just a few years ago.
LSU star Angel Reese donated $12k today to St Frances Academy MD per her mom 👏🏾
Reese donation will cover the tuition expenses of this coming school year. This same fund covered Angel’s tuition all 4 years as a student at SFA 🙏🏾
DOPE 🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/fsOUHmVWdM
— TimeoutSPORTS__ (@TimeoutSPORTS3) August 19, 2023
Reese, who was already clocking dollars with NIL deals before March Madness, has now been catapulted to the No. 1 ranking in collegiate athletics in terms of NIL deals with a combined valuation of $1.7 million. That’s good for sixth overall in all of collegiate athletics.
This follows the philanthropic gesture by Reese’s teammate, rapper and player Flau’Jae Johnson, who gave $10,000 to the Frank Callen Boys & Girls Club in her hometown of Savannah Georgia.
Reese and Johnson explained how NILs have changed the complexion of women’s athletics in college.
“As a woman you can make more money in college than going to the WNBA,” Reese testified.
“NIL has changed the game completely for everybody, men and women. You would think it would only be men and stuff, but its women too. We’re making bags!” Reese added. “They said I was leading the whole country in college basketball in NIL deals. As a black woman that meant so much I was like wow. I was just talking to her saying we’re going to be in the history books for saying we started this. We did so much here at LSU, in our first year here.”
