Release Date: June 5, 2024
How AND1 Basketball star Grayson Boucher met God: ‘Spiritual transformation’
Movieguide® Contributor
Grayson Boucher, better known in the basketball industry as “The Professor,” appeared on Christian rapper Lecrae’s “Deep End” podcast to discuss his spiritual journey.
“I remember having a Bible class, and at the end of the class, I had a friend who was kind of raised Christian, I think he was Christian, but he was kind of embarrassed to talk about it, and I asked him, ‘Does Jesus really exist?’ I don’t know why. I must have heard. My whole time in school, I hadn’t heard anything, you know? Literally homework was due, and I was like, ‘Do you have homework?'”
“I was just thinking about basketball, you know,” he continued, “so it’s funny, but I’ve been listening to this guy for the last hour talking about Jesus, and I’m like, ‘Is this real?’ And he’s like, ‘Yes.'”
“But that was it. I remember not thinking much about it after that,” Boucher added.
At that point, he saw his faith as a “code of ethics” with a “set of rules to follow.”
As he pursued his basketball career, his faith was overshadowed and his identity and self-worth was in the game: When he played well, he was on top of the world; when he played poorly, his worth was completely lost.
Eventually, the AND1 Basketball League was shut down and Boucher had no place to play. He was left without a job, money and purpose.
But a friend invited him to join a church basketball league, and he eventually found his way back to the church through that. But it wasn’t until one of his best friends died that he began to seriously consider how faith could change his life.
“It really forced me to ask bigger questions about life for the first time,” Boucher said.
From that moment on, Boucher underwent what Lecrae described as a “spiritual transformation” that changed his life forever.
He plans to step back from professional basketball to focus on his goal of helping young basketball players develop their skills and pursue their dreams.
“I really want to start spreading the gospel,” Boucher previously said, “not preaching, but using basketball as a way to lead people to Christ.”
One of the ways he does that is through Crossed Up University, a monthly subscription program for anyone looking to develop their skills on the court.
“…Aside from God supporting me from old school to new school to now, what got me through is a lot of dedication to perfecting my craft. I look forward to riding that same wave at Crossed Up University and inspiring a new generation of basketball players,” he posted on Instagram.
Movieguide® previously reported on Boucher:
In the world of sports, the NBA is the dominant basketball league, but at the time, other leagues were also starting to gain popularity.
The AND1 Mixtape Tour began in 2002 with “legendary streetballers like ‘Hot Sauce’ and ‘The Professor.'”
These players “traveled from city to city and court to court, going one-on-one with the best street ballers, entertaining fans and providing much of the footage for subsequent mixtapes.”
For many years, “AND1 dominated the summer” and all of its games “were broadcast live on ESPN under the name ‘Streetball,’ competing with ESPN’s SPORTSCENTER for highest ratings.”
Grayson Boucher, nicknamed “The Professor,” joined the league in 2003. Boucher had never played in a league like this before and knew it would be a big adjustment for him.
“I think certain environments just kind of freaked me out a little bit and made me not know how to behave,” Boucher said on Lecrae’s “Deep End” podcast. “Like, we played a lot of arenas where there weren’t any white people in the city, so I was like, what does that look like, because I want to be cool?”
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