Kevin Love will receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award during the 28th ESPY Award show, which will air on Sunday.
Love's public revelation of mental health issues has generated a greater focus on health and wellness among NBA players and other athletes and created the Kevin Love Fund aimed at “inspiring people to live their healthiest lives while providing the tools to achieve physical and emotional well-being.”
“I’m incredibly humbled by it,” Love said. “It’s really a profound honor if you look back at that group of men and women who I admire. Billie Jean King, Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell, to name a few. It’s very, very humbling to see my name next to those. I just feel like I have so much more work to do. Those are people who put in a lifetime of work. With my name next to theirs, I have an obligation and opportunity to make a lot of change in the world of mental health.
“I know what Arthur Ashe stood for and what he was about, especially being around UCLA. It’s just tough for me even now to put it into words what this means because it’s so much bigger than the realm of sports.”
