• L.A. Clippers guard Norman Powell tells PEOPLE how his mantra was inspired

• Growing up, his mom was a special needs teacher in Southern California

• His foundation was inspired by giving back to the youth in his community

Norman Powell isn’t an NBA all-star, falling short of the accolade by a few thousand votes before the Jan. 20 voting deadline, but the L.A. Clippers guard doesn’t need that title to make waves in the NBA or in his hometown in Southern California.

He has his mantra: “Understand the grind.”

That phrase is a “key piece” of who Powell, 31, is today, he tells PEOPLE. 

“It started from me and my friends in high school having a conversation, we just asked ourselves, how come we don't see a lot of successful people coming out of our neighborhood? We had a lot of players and athletes that were touted at a young age to be the next best thing out of San Diego, but they never actually blossomed into that,” he says.

Powell and his friends — who are still his closest to this day — determined at the time: “A lot of people don’t understand the grind.”

“They don’t understand what it takes to be successful — and the obstacles, the choices you have to make along the path. People don’t understand what it takes when they’re pursuing their goals and dreams, and we used that tagline, that mantra, as a form of motivation for us to go after our own dreams."

More than 178,000 fans voted for Powell to play in the 2025 NBA All-Star game. But before he was a fan-favorite for Clipper fans, a young Powell made a promise to himself before being drafted into the NBA. “I always told myself when I made it to where I'm at today, I'll always give back,” he tells PEOPLE.

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“I didn't know what that looked like. I just knew that I wanted to leave everlasting impression on the kids coming up after me.”

Powell’s journey to the NBA wasn’t easy. “The community that we’re in, the urban pocket of San Diego, a lot of people don’t really know about it or talk about it. It can be rough. I dealt with gangs, drugs, bad schooling systems, things like that,” says Powell.

“Going into a city that doesn't really pour as much into the area as you get in La Jolla or Solana Beach or La Costa Canyon or Mar places like that. We didn't have that in southeast San Diego.”

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His earliest inspiration for giving back came from his mom, Sharon Powell, a former social worker and special needs teacher. “That left a lasting impression on me as a kid.”

Powell’s mom was often “helping the next family” — despite also caring for him and his two older sisters, Joniece and Margaret.

“She still found time to make sure the next person had the things necessary to be successful, whether that was in school or giving them a ride home, making sure they were safe, listening to them, going to their teacher meetings.”

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After leading Toronto to a 2019 championship alongside his now-Clippers teammate Kawhi Leonard, Powell says Raptors fans “loved” the “Understand the grind” mentality.

They started by selling “a little merchandise here and there” so they could accumulate “a little pot to give back to the community,” says Powell. “And from there, it took off into the brand.

"I thought it would be cool to kind of umbrella everything underneath, 'Understand the Grind,' since it's who I am; and start the foundation and just start to motivate the next generation through my story, through my career, and try to give them little pieces of what it means.”

The foundation officially launched two years ago. Before that, “everything was coming out of my pocket,” says Powell.

Next, the foundation will work to offer scholarships to student athletes. “Overall picture,” says Powell, “is to really build this up where we have enough money to change the lives of the next generation of kids.”

Read the original article on People