LYNN — On a humid but cool summer morning, Keith Lee laced up his Jordan 37s, did a special handshake with his son, and shot a basketball into a hoop at Lynn English High School. From there, his roughly 30-mile journey of dribbling a basketball from Lynn to Lawrence began.
With him was a backpack that had extra socks and a shirt with a picture of his college roommate, who passed away. The backpack would also soon be filled with water and Pedialyte that his family would bring him on his route.
There are a few reasons Lee, a Lynn English graduate, said he was embarking on the physically challenging endeavor Friday. The basketball coach and entrepreneur discussed many topics that he is passionate about while getting ready to leave, from social and racial justice to shedding a positive light on Lynn.
Lee hopes that someday, he will have a platform to speak about these things. Doing challenges like dribbling a basketball from Lynn to Lawrence, and having people notice them, is one way he could reach that goal, he said.
“There is nowhere like Lynn,” Lee said. “We need some respect and some just overall notoriety.”
Lee had a Lynn Police escort with him during his journey, which he estimated would take him about eight hours.
Friday’s journey was not the first time Lee did something like this. Around two years ago, he dribbled a basketball from Lawrence to Lynn in order to raise awareness for his nephew, who needed a kidney transplant.
During that first trip, he said he felt relief when he reached the end. He wanted to quit, but when he saw the sign for Fauci’s Pizza, he knew he was almost at the end and had to keep going.
That trip from Lawrence to Lynn took place in November when the weather was cold, he said. This time around, it was warm and he had something to look forward to at the finish line: Fellow basketball players at Chico’s Summer Shootout were waiting for him.
Lee’s son, Keith Joe Lee, said he was surprised when his dad told him he was doing the challenge again.
“I feel pretty good, I feel pretty confident in how he’s going to do,” Keith Joe Lee, an elementary-school student in Lawrence, said.
Keith Lee said that when he decided he wanted to dribble from Lynn to Lawrence, it only took him a matter of days to actually do it. He added that the quick time frame did not leave room for his journey to be recorded as a world record, but that he will one day repeat the challenge in front of a Guinness Book of World Records representative.
If you’d like to see highlights from his journey, visit Keith Lee’s Instagram @Eleetbasketball.
