Former longtime NBA player Rasheed Wallace has been hired as the boys' basketball coach at Jordan High School in Durham, North Carolina.
Wallace, who was introduced at a news conference at the school Friday morning, served as an assistant coach during the 2013-14 season for the Detroit Pistons. He said he had taken the Jordan job after turning down several offers from NBA teams to be on their staffs.
"Yeah, the money was good or whatever, but it's not about the money for me. It's about knowledge," Wallace said. "Knowledge definitely should be free. It doesn't cost anything to pass that knowledge on to all the young men here."
Wallace averaged 14.4 points and 6.7 rebounds over an 18-year NBA career in which he played for six teams and was selected to four All-Star Games. He won an NBA championship with the Pistons in 2004.
Wallace, 44, played two seasons for the North Carolina Tar Heels before being drafted by the Washington Bullets in 1995.
"It's also my neighborhood school. I'm in the neighborhood. I'm in the community. So that's why it's definitely going to be important for me and the gentlemen to do community work," Wallace said of his new players.
Known for his on-court volatility in addition to his ability, Wallace accumulated 312 technical fouls during his NBA career -- the most by any player in the past 25 years, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
