Kash Cannon, former Northeastern basketball Husky, on her journey to becoming the Boston Celtics Director of Community Engagement.
Written by Isabel Rey-Bollentini. Photo Courtesy of YMCA Go.
Working for a professional basketball team was always Kash Cannon’s dream.
A 2012 Northeastern graduate and former women’s basketball captain, Cannon grew up playing basketball from an early age. Like many young basketball players, her goal was to make it to the WNBA: the highest platform for female players.
Or that’s what she thought.
It wasn’t until her junior year at Northeastern University that Cannon realized there were other things she could do professionally off the court while making a meaningful impact. She quickly developed interest in the community engagement sector of professional basketball.
“It wasn’t until my junior year of college that I learned [about community engagement] by talking to different people who exposed me to the different departments that live within the NBA and WNBA.”
Today, she serves as Director of Community Engagement for the Boston Celtics, where she runs and oversees the Celtics’ community programs, events, and initiatives. Daily, Cannon engages conversations with different community centers, schools, and organizations in New England.
Utilizing resources from the Celtics organization, Cannon designs initiatives to enact positive changes in the community, particularly among schools and the youth.
“In a school that’s struggling with literacy, utilize our resources and assets to create a program that incentivizes positive behavior and some type of change. Our resources are the players for the most part, but also our mascot, Celtics swag, and just the brand overall,” Cannon explained.
“I’ll go into a school and say ‘if you guys read for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, I’ll come back with Jason Tatum, Marcus Smart, and we’ll have a big celebration.’ It works every single time.”
Although her role now is off the court, Cannon finds a lot of alignment between her new position and her time playing at Northeastern. During her collegiate career, Cannon engaged regularly in community events and service activities where she learned to speak publicly, work with others, and lead a team; all of which are essential to her work now.
“We really had to understand that the chemistry we had off the court affected the chemistry we had on the court and how we performed. That really shaped the way I interact with people now. You have to be authentic and organic in the way you approach people.”
Cannon’s leadership at Northeastern as a team captain also taught her lessons that she took with her to the Celtics. Cannon believes that understanding one’s influence and appreciating the platform one stands on, both on and off the court, is essential as a leader.
“[At the Celtics] I have to make sure I operate in a way that is looked upon in a positive way in the entire organization, but also the people who I’m working with” she said. “That’s something that I learned at Northeastern when I was playing on the basketball team.”
Prior to joining the Celtics, Cannon ran a girls’ basketball enrichment program, spending each day on the ground. When the Celtics reached out to her with an opportunity in their community engagement sector, Cannon was initially worried that the work would be surface level.
“What I don’t want to do is go to a school and tell the kids to put on a green T-shirt and tell them to smile and take a picture and that’s what we call community work,” she explained.
Cannon wanted to stay on the ground and play a direct role in the lives of young people to make real change. After speaking to then-vice president of community engagement, David Hoffman, Cannon learned that the Celtics were interested in work that was impactful, deep, and strategic.
Ultimately, Cannon decided to join the organization because she felt she could leverage the Celtics’ resources to pursue life-changing initiatives for kids and the community. As a black woman, Cannon felt that being the face of such a powerful organization could be inspiring for young girls.
“One of the reasons that I took the job was the resources that were going to be available to me in order to make a difference, but it was also just the thought of me being able to climb a ladder in such a powerful organization and thinking about what that would look like and what that would mean for my own niece and for the young girls who I was working with.” Cannon said. “When I talk to my girls now I always tell them “If I can do it. you can do it.”
Thanks to her own journey in the sports industry, Cannon believes that it’s important for women to lean on each other and support one another.
“It’s not always going to be easy. You may hit some roadblocks, some challenges; there might be people who doubt you, who don’t think you’re capable,” Cannon said. “But you just block out all the noise and you just go for it. We—as women, as girls—we have really unique perspectives, and our voices are really valuable if they allow us to use them in a way that’s impactful.”
The Red & Black 