On Saturday, February 9, 2002 stars and athletes got together for The NBA All-Star Read to Achieve Celebration. The show kicked off in Philadelphia and was hosted by Ahmad Rashad and Summer Sanders of NBA Inside Stuff. Spanish hottie Enrique Iglesias got the crowd pumped with his latest dance hit, Escape.
The idea behind the show is to get kidz hyped about reading and to show them how important it is in order to succeed in life, regardless of whether you're an athlete, musician or even a janitor. In between musical guests, NBA players talked about why reading's important to them.
It's no surprise that the performer everyone was dying to hear was Lil Bow Wow. All the lil' girlies raised the roof and sang along to their idol as he rapped his latest tune, Take Ya Home. Bow Wow was decked-out in a white and red Chicago Bulls shirt, a pair of jeans and a white headband. In the middle of the song he broke into a dance sequence and the crowd managed to scream even louder!
DJ Jazzy Jeff took the stage and introduced his old pal - Philly native, Will Smith, to chat about reading. Then soul sista Alicia Keys performed her song, Girlfriend.
Host Summer Sanders sat down with cutie, Frankie Muniz, of Malcolm in the Middle and Big Fat Liar and he shared his thoughts on reading. Frankie always has a book with him for when he has some down time in between work. He also does a lot of reading for work too, cuz he's constantly reading scripts. He seemed pretty excited cuz he just got his drivers license. Way to go Frankie! (You have to be able to read to get your license.)
Britney and her dancers hit the stage for a rendition of Boys and P. Diddy closed the show with his latest ditty... called... well, Diddy. Seriously, could P. Diddy's head be any puffy-er? The NBA All-Star Read to Achieve Celebration was a really cool event. What better way to stress the importance of reading than hearing it from some of your fave celebs and NBA players?
For more on The All-Star Game check out nba.com.
