Former NBA Player To Speak At Limestone On Sept. 22

Limestone College will welcome former NBA player Paul Shirley for a speaking engagement at Fullerton Auditorium on Tuesday, Sept. 22, at 7 p.m. Admission is free and the public is invited to attend.

Shirley is a former professional basketball player who now writes, teaches, speaks, and runs a writing workshop in Los Angeles.

He has a unique message that will be of particular interest to student-athletes.

The chief goal of Shirley's address will be answering, "What good will come of being a student-athlete – especially at a small school?" He will share stories about how being a student-athlete helped him personally after college, specifically with confidence, time management, and health and wellness.

Shirley was born in Redwood City, Calif., and grew up near Meriden, Kan. He played high school basketball at Jefferson West High School prior to playing for Iowa State University. After graduation, Shirley played for 13 different professional basketball teams: the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, Atlanta Hawks, and Chicago Bulls; and Panionios Athens of the Greek A1 League, Joventut Badalona, ViveMenorca, Unicaja Malaga of the Spanish ACB League, and UNICS Kazan of the Russian Super League.

While playing professionally in Greece when he was 23 years old, Shirley started writing journal entries and that has continued. While playing for the Phoenix Suns, the team asked him to write for its website.

Shirley wrote the book “Can I Keep My Jersey?: 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond,” published by Random House in 2007.

Professional basketball ended five years ago for Shirley, and he has since developed his writing career. He has written for Esquire, Slate, ESPN.com, and the Wall Street Journal. Shirley is the chief editor for FlipCollective and also does an NBA podcast with fellow author Justin Halpern.

Former ESPN writer Bill Simmons once said of Shirley and his unique career and personality: “We could finally have an answer to the question ‘What would it be like if one of our friends was an NBA player?’”