Brandin Podziemski sends powerful message in graduation speech at his alma mater

Late May to the middle of June is the apex of the mountain that is the NBA season. Legends are born out of the climb and under the brightest of lights. Cities come alive as other fan bases lose sleep replaying games over and over in their heads. It’s a time to revel in the present, and already start planning for the future. Coincidentally, basketball’s best part of the calendar coexists with graduation season for all ages. Like the NBA playoffs, wearing a cap and gown also is celebrating the now and gearing up for what’s next.Some speeches are going viral for the youth lashing out against AI, and the greedy for not understanding the problem while addressing a group of graduates without recognizing the point and power of humanity. Most get completely forgotten forever, especially at the high school level. Brandin Podziemski is among the majority who simply wanted to press “Fast Forward” and get the day over with five years ago. The Warriors guard remembers his feelings, but not the speeches. “I just remember wanting to graduate,” Podziemski said to NBC Sports Bay Area. “It was really long. I just wanted to get out of there, but looking back on it, I definitely miss it. I wish I could go back all the time, just to have those times where you don’t have to worry about anything. Everything’s paid for. You can be a kid again. You don’t have to grow up, in a sense.” That experience is what Podziemski leaned on, and also tried to avoid, when he received a phone call in early April. On the other end was Robert J. Fine Jr., the President of St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin, where Podziemski attended high school for his final three years. Podziemski was more excited than nervous when Fine asked him to give the keynote address at this year’s graduation on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. Emotions were cast aside and Podziemski instantly began asking himself the same question countless others have contemplated: How can I get a message across to the graduating class that they can take with them and remember? Inspiration didn’t come from Podziemski watching past speeches. All he had to do was close his eyes and remember himself in their shoes – the same shoes he once was in, taking one step at a time on his way to the NBA in a Warriors jersey. “The ability to relate, it goes with anything, with a speech or just connecting with somebody on a different level,” Podziemski says. “How can I relate to them? If they’ve shared the same experiences that I’ve shared in the same hallways, the same school, the same teachers, the same campus, I feel like it resonates more with those people.” Wearing an all-black suit on a sunny day, a little more than half an hour outside of Milwaukee, Podziemski begins by thanking the staff who made him a part of the school and invited him back. Stating the day belongs to the Class of 2026, he encourages them to all give themselves a round of applause. Over the phone, lines from his speech come out as if they’re part of a night time routine reflecting on leadership, adversity, work ethic, discipline and the importance of showing up when things get uncomfortable, using his own journey from the campus he was speaking at to his brief stint at the University of Illinois, thriving at Santa Clara and becoming a first-round draft pick for the Warriors.You do not need everyone to believe in you; you just can’t quit on yourself. How do you show up when it’s hard? How do you show up when no one’s watching? How do you show up when things don’t go your way? Because success is not one big moment, it’s a collection of small decisions repeated over and over again. Don’t be afraid to take the long road. Don’t be afraid to pivot. Don’t be afraid to fail publicly if it means growing in private. The world does not need more people who play it safe; it needs more people willing to chase something, even when that’s uncertain. “It only makes sense to give back to the places that did so much for you when they didn’t have to,” Podziemski says. “The thinking was a no-brainer. I thought, just like anything I do when I’m committed to doing something, I want to do the best at what I’m doing. I just wanted to write a good speech. I wanted to leave a good taste in people’s mouths in the graduating class, and that was where the motivation behind everything came from.”Graduation day at St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy is like a holiday for Podziemski. He comes home and attends the ceremony every year at a unique school he calls “the best investment I’ve ever made.” His daily high school experience wasn’t the typical routine for an average American teenager. For starters, Podziemski lived at a boarding school that had a military format. Everybody plays a sport, and competition is as essential as reading and writing. And it’s about more than stats and the final score. Everything from how to fold your clothes to where they’re supposed to be in your drawers, how to make your bed with square corners, how to hang things in your closet, how to keep your shoes shined and how to properly iron your uniform is taught. Core parts of life that Podziemski and his peers might have taken for granted now had them preparing for adulthood years before others. There are four units at the school, which are called companies. Each day is a competition among them. You compete to try to have the best living spaces with the cleanest kitchen and bedrooms. “It was a competition within those things, but then within your company you wanted to be the best at having the best bed made, having the cleanest drawers, the best academics,” Podziemski remembers. “So it really just instilled how to do those things, but also the competitiveness in those little small things, and I think it’s translated immensely for me in every aspect of my life.”Podziemski was in a different company all three years at the school. He was in Charlie and Delta as a sophomore, and then Delta and Bravo his junior year. In his senior year, the school went from strictly a military academy to having a military academy and leadership academy, the latter of which Podziemski was President. When students first arrive on the campus that is 7th through 12th grade, you’re the lowest rank (red board), no matter what age you are. Lower ranks are led by higher ranks. Some could be younger than you, and you better still stand straight and listen. “It’s really humbling having to listen to other kids,” Podziemski says. “It’s a cadet-led, or student-led, campus just with adult supervision. It really enforces that interaction, problem solving, talking amongst your peers and not running to adults for help. It really forces those skills.” The number of people Podziemski had in support was basically equal to half the entire graduating class. He says 40 to 60 seniors graduate every year. He also says he had about 20 to 30 people there for him, including most of his family, friends he went to the school with and coaches who helped shape him there. Among Podziemski’s group of supporters was his shooting and skills trainer, Dustin VanLieu. As Podziemski was giving his speech, VanLieu posted a screenshot to his Instagram story with another quote the 23-year-old said during his speech. Learn how to respond to failure instead of fearing it.“I never had someone tell me that exact quote or tell me how to necessarily prepare for it or react to it, but I think I just learned from experience,” Podziemski says. “But I mentioned that in the speech of going to Illinois and not playing. Going from being the guy at St. John’s that everybody wants to be like, going to Illinois, where people were probably afraid to admit that they knew me, just because of the lack of playing time that I got. So, going from there and then redeeming myself at Santa Clara and becoming the 19th pick all within a 36-month period, I think for me I just kind of wanted to speak upon the failure and adversity piece is going to be a part of your life no matter what you do. “It’s how you respond to it in a positive or negative way that really dictates what your life can look like. That’s what my message was with that goal.”Jotting down thoughts for his speech began in the Notes app of Podziemski’s iPhone with scrambled writing of things he wanted to talk about, points he wanted to say and then making them into sentences that sounded right and could resonate with the audience. He’d ask his dad what he thought and throw ideas at his close circle if he was missing anything that needed to be added from his own experiences. That led to pauses between the points he really wanted to hit home, letting his mind do the writing while forming words into a speech over a multi-week period. The Class of 2026 at St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy is particularly meaningful to Podziemski. This year marked his third in the NBA and his fifth since leaving the campus. It also was the last class he went to school with. Those who entered in seventh grade and celebrated as graduates on May 23 were the ones who saw Podziemski become Wisconsin’s Mr. Basketball and Gatorade Player of the Year in 2021 when he averaged 35 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 4.3 steals per game.Podziemski’s speech wrapped with a reminder of connecting the past, present and future. He was once them, and they can be whatever they want. His final words had him in a Warriors jersey, yet forever a graduate of St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy. Whenever you see me on TV wearing a Golden State Warriors uniform, just remember, I’m not only an NBA player, I’m a proud St. John’s graduate, just like all of you.“Whatever your aspiration is in life, your next step, whether it’s college, whether it’s the workforce, whether it’s the military – whatever it is – you’re going to face some type of adversity,” Podziemski says. “That was my message, and how it ties into leadership and being a good person to other people.” Everybody applauded, and every graduate shook hands, dapped, hugged and took a picture with Podziemski. For six minutes, he spoke to the Graduating Class of 2026 and those there for them. Inherently, he spoke to Warriors fans and described the type of player he wants to be known as, who has succeeded and struggled, who has finished top three in charges three straight seasons and who was the only player on the team to play all 82 games this year. He spoke as someone who has been the youngest player on the Warriors in each of his first three NBA seasons, who has heard the noise and who has admitted reflection from harmless words that also show where he now is in the world. Directly, he spoke on this year being “the biggest leadership challenge of my life,” referencing injuries to Warriors stars Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler. He spoke on Steve Kerr asking him and the Warriors’ other young players to step up in troubled times, and how, after not understanding at first, he used leadership challenges from this very school to help him have the best individual stretch of his career before speaking the exact words he recited off his head on the phone four days later.If Podziemski’s speech is remembered by his alma mater’s graduating students, it’s because they can feel his words like he felt them, which always beats being able to recite a few phrases years from now.Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast

Brandin Podziemski sends powerful message in graduation speech at his alma mater

Trending News