Renowned actor and producer Michael B. Jordan sat down with USA Today to talk about his HBCU basketball tournament, the Invesco QQQ Legacy Classic. Jordan partnered with Invesco QQQ three years ago to create a high-end basketball event specifically for HBCUs. A native of Newark, NJ, Jordan had a lot of exposure to basketball in the area.
“This is kind of where it started, for sure,” he said. “Watching Knick games with my dad, people talked a lot. There was a lot of heckling, a lot of jokes, but it kind of gave me a drive to want to be competitive at whatever I was doing.”
After the summer of 2020, a lot of national attention fell onto HBCUs. Corporations scrambled to diversify their workforces, which led them to predominantly Black spaces. Amidst that scramble, Jordan had a realization.
“HBCU culture, I always grew up around it. I think as I got older, I started to look at other basketball tournaments that existed and got curious why HBCUs never had one. In my mind, the way I work, it was, “How do I reverse engineer that? How do I make one?”
In December of 2021, Jordan presented the first Legacy Classic in Newark. “Somehow, it feels right to come back home and take those things you learned and invest back into the place that made you,” he said. “Knowing there’s gonna be kids from Newark, you know, watching what I’ve built feels special. It’s proof that you can do whatever you put your mind to.”
The Legacy Classic’s first iteration featured matchups between Howard and North Carolina A&T, and North Carolina Central versus Delaware State. Fast-forward to 2024, the tournament is stronger than ever. After Grambling State handled Jackson State 70-60, Hampton and Howard tipped off one of the best games of the year. Hampton snuck away with a 63-61 victory in the “Battle of the Real HU.”
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