On March 15, 2024, Dr. Lindsay Whorton, president of The Holdsworth Center, interviewed former Spurs basketball player David Robinson, Sr., San Antonio civic leader and urban developer David Robinson, Jr., and Kara Allen, Chief People, Impact and Belonging Officer for Spurs Sports & Entertainment.
Robinson is so passionate about education that after retiring from basketball, he founded Carver Academy, a K-8 school in San Antonio that opened in 2001.
Below is an excerpt from the hourlong conversation.
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Lindsay Whorton: What shaped you and formed who you’ve become as an adult and a leader in the world?
David Robinson, Sr.: My mother grew up in Columbia, South Carolina in the 1950s, and my dad grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas in the 1950s. So segregation – really a difficult time to be in either one of those communities.
So fast forward a generation later, and my sister has her PhD, I got my master’s degree, two of my sons have master’s degrees. To see where my mom and dad brought the family, the things that they’ve done in just two generations – it’s incredible. And to me, that’s kind of the story of America. That’s what we can do, but it has to be intentional.
My mom passed away a year and a half ago. And I remember sitting there at her funeral and thinking, she’s going before the Lord and the Lord is saying, “What’d you do with what I gave you?” And she can say, “I multiplied it thousandfold.” Am I going to be able to multiply what I’ve been given thousandfold? I mean, what she was able to do, the vision – how do you have a vision coming from that type of environment?
My parents did such a good job of getting me out of that environment and saying, “We’re going to set your mindset. We’re going to give you the opportunity.” And now I look at my children and they literally think they can do anything. To me, that’s the hope I want to give to kids when they come to our schools (Carver Academy).
Lindsay Whorton: The Spurs is a championship organization, but also an organization that’s about building leadership and legacy. That doesn’t seem common for professional sports organizations, and I was curious to hear more about what has made the Spurs that kind of place.
David Robinson, Sr.: The reason I got drafted is because we were a terrible team. How do you build a championship team when you’re not going to get free agents? We had to be more creative, and I think it forced us to have strong values and strong culture to ensure success.
David Robinson, Jr.: So many Spurs players still live in San Antonio when they have no reason to – they’re not from there. It’s that culture, that ecosystem – they feel valued. That does not happen in a lot of cases. If you look at Antonio Daniels and Bruce Bowen and my dad and Tim (Duncan) and Manu (Ginobili) – so many people want to stay around and want to give back to that next generation. They want to stay involved. They value what that experience had been in the past. It wasn’t transactional. It was meaningful. And I think that’s how San Antonio’s ethos is in a lot of ways. It’s not a transactional city. Things move a little slower, but that’s good in a lot of ways and people want to give back.
Kara Allen: The best place to plant a young tree is around older trees. And the reason is because the roots of the tree quite literally learn to grow from the roots of older trees.
What an incredibly beautiful opportunity to understand the ways in which older trees and younger trees grow together, by blood and biology, but also by proximity. When Manu walks into a gym, a young human learns and watches those moves in the same way that when R.C. (Buford, CEO of the Spurs) models a learn-it-all culture, not a know-it-all culture, those of us who are newer to this work learn those roots. It is one of the most unique things about the Spurs – nothing to do with a banner that hangs, but about the roots that nobody sees.
Lindsay Whorton: What do you focus on that gives you a sense of hope in times that are dim and discouraging, or what do you do to provide hope to other people in your work?
David Robinson, Jr.: One of the things that we do that’s life-giving for me is we have a fellowship with 10 seniors at Carver Academy and we spend once a month on Saturdays just talking to them, getting to know them, understanding what’s going on in their lives. I think that’s such an important touchpoint versus just always sitting at the thousand-foot viewpoint.
David Robinson, Sr.: Being in direct contact with the students and seeing their challenges is a huge deal for us. I see the young talent. I see it’s there and I see all it needs is a little push. So many of these kids, they need to believe in themselves.
It can be depressing looking at the news and looking at Congress and every conversation being so contentious, and it just feels more divided day by day. But you know what the answer is? People. The answer is me doing a better job as Dad. The answer is me doing a better job in my community. It starts in communities.
Most people feel helpless. They won’t even go vote because they feel helpless. They feel like their vote’s not going to matter. But we’re seeing a whole generation of kids come up now through the schools that do know they make a difference. And that’s where it starts. I stay encouraged because I know my joy doesn’t come from what the president’s saying or what’s happening in the court systems or what anybody else is doing. My joy comes from the opportunity to wake up every day and fulfill my calling. That’s really what we try to communicate to these kids – fulfill your calling.
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