PJ Brown Breya Cunningham and Jada Williams were eating chicken McNuggets, hamburgers and french fries with their teammates at La Jolla Country Day School when they found out.
“I'm 'W' — Williams — I'm always last. I'm looking, I'm watching and I see my name pop up and really it just brought tears to my eyes,” Williams said. “I just hugged my mom. It's something that we dream about from day one of becoming a basketball player. Cunningham and Williams are just the latest McDonald's All-Americans to join the program, following Cate Reese, Maya Nnaji and former Wildcat Paris Clark.
Williams, who considers leadership as one of her biggest strengths on the court, is also one of the brightest stars off the court in terms of name, image and likeness . She has deals with Spaulding, Gymshark, LaceClips, Move Insoles and Lemon Perfect, among others. “It was a great experience, just be able to reach out into and help a community,” Cunningham said. “I feel like we really made a lot of those little kids’ day. Being able to see the impact that you're having on people is a really cool thing. I think that was probably one of my favorite things that we did.”
“Being able to see those kids smile was something that makes me smile. I teared up walking in there knowing what these kids go through. It’s traumatic. It really is. Being able to play basketball with them, being able to blow bubbles at them makes their day, and they're never going to forget that, not knowing where their life is going to go.