Jalen Brunson's Mother Sends Pre-Game Texts Since High School

For more than a decade, Sandra Brunson has sent her son Jalen a text message before every basketball game — a quiet ritual that began in high school and has followed him through Villanova, the NBA draft, and into the bright lights of New York. Now one of the league's most gifted point guards, Brunson still looks forward to those messages, a reminder that behind every public performance lives a private relationship that no scoreboard can measure. In the constancy of a mother's encouragement, something essential about human belonging is preserved.