Big Man on Campus: Celtics Star Jaylen Brown Visits Babson

Jacob Getchell ’29 was at breakfast Monday morning when he heard that Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown would be on campus in the afternoon. 

Getchell then waited in line nearly three hours for his chance to meet the basketball superstar, pose for a photo, and get an autograph. While he waited, he had plenty of time to ponder his interaction and decided to ask Brown to reflect. 

“I was like, I’ve got a question for you: ‘It was Thanksgiving recently. What were you most thankful for?’ ” Getchell said just moments after his celebrity encounter. “And he had to think about it for a second, which I can tell he was giving a real, genuine answer, which is awesome. And he’s like, for everything, the good and the bad, but mostly the adversity, and how he’s been able to come back from anything that’s been thrown in his direction.” 

It was the perfect answer for aspiring entrepreneurial leaders like Getchell, who was beside himself with excitement. “That was awesome,” he said.

Brown, the 2024 NBA Finals MVP and four-time All-Star, was on campus as part of a promotional event created by students in the Retailing Management class taught by Professor and Associate Dean Lauren Beitelspacher, who also is the Ken and Nancy Major Romanzi Senior Term Chair in Marketing. 

The 41 students in the Advanced Experiential elective spent the semester consulting for a number of small businesses and were planning to run a pop-up store on campus for three days. Beitelspacher connected the students with Joel Kamm MBA’12, founder of Flexetail, to use one of his mobile retail trailers. Kamm then facilitated a connection for the student group to sell sneakers and apparel from Brown’s brand, 741 Performance, which in turn brought the superstar to campus. 

COMING TO BT&A — Part 2: How the Retailing Management class brought the Celtics star to campus in a real-world example of experiential learning.

About 200 people who purchased gear lined up to meet the Celtics champion near the 741 trailer on Park Manor Way. Brown graciously and patiently greeted every person—offering handshakes and fist bumps, posing for photos, signing autographs on everything from his signature sneakers to posters and even a OneCard. He even played rock, paper, scissors with one young fan. He then posed for a group photo with Beitelspacher and her students. 

“This is my first time on campus,” Brown said. “It was great. There’s a lot of great students. I’m happy to be here. It was fun.” 

“This is my first time on campus. It was great. There’s a lot of great students. I’m happy to be here. It was fun.”
Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown

For the students and others who waited in line and got to meet Brown, it was more than fun. 

“Oh, my gosh, life-changing,” said Mia Hansen ’27, who plays on the Babson softball team and whose mother, Rita Hansen P’24 ’27, is a longtime Babson employee and now the executive assistant to Provost Ariel Armony. “My family’s big Boston sports fans, always watching, like my grandfather and everything, and it’s just kind of life-changing to meet somebody who’s made such an impact in Boston sports.” 

The whole celebrity experience was a celebration of Brown and Babson. 

“I think it’s cool about the networking kind of thing that Babson has to offer,” Hansen said. “I was talking with some of the students that helped make this event possible, and how they were connecting with the alum and then having that connection with Jaylen Brown. That’s what makes Babson so unique.” 

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Tagged Alumni, Athletics, Campus, Faculty, Management, Marketing, Student Life, Undergraduate, Entrepreneurship Education

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